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During the past several years, a high level of activity has been directed toward developing more efficient lighting products to meet consumer demand in the face of energy scarcity and its high cost. Without major redesign of lamps, manufacturers have been able to achieve modest gains of 5 to 10 percent in incandescent lamp efficacy by optimizing standard features such as filament design, gas fill, etc. What was desired for incandescent lamps was a major jump in efficacy of 30% or more. Much encouraging work, notably by Philips in the Netherlands, has already been accomplished in the laboratory using thin film reflectors to recycle the wasted infrared radiation from incandescent lamps. Indium tin oxide (ITO) films, which are transparent in the visible and reflect well at wavelengths greater than 2 micrometers, is a most attractive material for its simplicity and apparent high performance. It °has a serious drawback, however, in its inability to reflect adequately when its temperature exceeds 800 C. A separate outer jacket surrounding the lamp itself is required in order to keep the ITO coating cool and thereby take advantage of its properties. The use of this extra component makes this solution to the energy problem more expensive and complex. In the United States, the Duratest Corporation has developed a sophisticated silver coating which is deposited inside domestic type A-line lamps. About six years ago, the General Electric Co., a major U.S. lamp manufacturer, approached 0.C.L.I. and requested assistance in improving the quartz-halogen lamp. The G.E.-0.C.L.I. method that was developed for improving the efficacy of an incandescent lamp product consists of coating quartz-halogen lamps with infrared reflectors. These reflectors are interference reflector stacks made of refractory metal oxides using conventional thermal evaporation technology. These products have been available commercially for about three years.
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