How does a halogen light bulb work?
Let’s start with a normal electric light bulb like you see in any normal household lamp. A normal light bulb is made up of a fairly large, thin, frosted glass envelope. Inside the glass is a gas such as argon and/or nitrogen. At the center of the lamp is a tungsten filament. Electricity heats this filament up to about 4,500 degrees F (2,500 degrees Celsius). Just like any hot metal, the tungsten gets “white hot” at that heat and emits a great deal of visible light in a process called incandescence. See How Gas Lanterns Work for more information on incandescence. A normal light bulb is not very efficient, and it only lasts about 750 to 1,000 hours in normal use. It’s not very efficient because, in the process of radiating light, it also radiates a huge amount of infrared heat — far more heat than light. Since the
