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How Light Bulbs Work

Before the invention of the light bulb, illuminating the world after the
sun went down was a messy, arduous, hazardous task. It took a bunch
of candles or torches to fully light up a good-sized room, and oil lamps,
while fairly effective, tended to leave a residue of soot on anything in their
general vicinity.
When the science of electricity really got going in the mid 1800s,
inventors everywhere were clamoring to devise a practical, affordable
electrical home lighting device. Englishman Sir Joseph Swan and American
Thomas Edison both got it right around the same time (in 1878 and 1879,
respectively), and within 25 years, millions of people around the world had
installed electrical lighting in their homes. The easy-to-use technology
was such an improvement over the old ways that the world never looked
back.
The amazing thing about this historical turn of events is that the light bulb
itself could hardly be simpler. The modern light bulb, which hasn't
changed drastically since Edison's model, is made up of only a handful of
parts. In this article, we'll see how these parts come together to produce
bright light for hours on end.
Light Basics
Light is a form of energy that can be released by an atom. It is made up of
many small particle-like packets that have energy and momentum but no

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mass. These particles, called light photons, are the most basic units of
light. (For more information, see How Light Works.)
Atoms release light photons when their electrons become excited. If
you've read How Atoms Work, then you know that electrons are the
negatively charged particles that move around an atom's nucleus (which
has a net positive charge). An atom's electrons have different levels of
energy, depending on several factors, including their speed and distance
from the nucleus. Electrons of different energy levels occupy different
orbitals. Generally speaking, electrons with greater energy move in
orbitals farther away from the nucleus. When an atom gains or loses
energy, the change is expressed by the movement of electrons. When
something passes energy on to an atom, an electron may be temporarily
boosted to a higher orbital (farther away from the nucleus). The electron
only holds this position for a tiny fraction of a second; almost immediately,
it is drawn back toward the nucleus, to its original orbital. As it returns to
its original orbital, the electron releases the extra energy in the form of a
photon, in some cases a light photon.
The wavelength of the emitted light (which determines its color) depends
on how much energy is released, which depends on the particular position
of the electron. Consequently, different sorts of atoms will release
different sorts of light photons. In other words, the color of the light is
determined by what kind of atom is excited.
This is the basic mechanism at work in nearly all light sources. The main
difference between these sources is the process of exciting the atoms.
In the next section we'll look at the different parts of a light bulb.

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Light Bulb Structure
Light bulbs have a very simple structure. At the base, they have two metal
contacts, which connect to the ends of an electrical circuit. The metal
contacts are attached to two stiff wires, which are attached to a thin
metal filament. The filament sits in the middle of the bulb, held up by
a glass mount. The wires and the filament are housed in a glass bulb,
which is filled with an inert gas, such as argon.
When the bulb is hooked up to a power supply, an electric current flows
from one contact to the other, through the wires and the filament. Electric
current in a solid conductor is the mass movement of free
electrons (electrons that are not tightly bound to an atom) from a
negatively charged area to a positively charged area.
As the electrons zip along through the filament, they are constantly
bumping into the atoms that make up the filament. The energy of each
impact vibrates an atom -- in other words, the current heats the atoms up.
A thinner conductor heats up more easily than a thicker conductor
because it is more resistant to the movement of electrons.
Bound electrons in the vibrating atoms may be boosted temporarily to a
higher energy level. When they fall back to their normal levels, the
electrons release the extra energy in the form of photons. Metal atoms
release mostly infrared light photons, which are invisible to the human
eye. But if they are heated to a high enough level -- around 4,000 degrees
Fahrenheit (2,200 degrees C) in the case of a light bulb -- they will emit a
good deal of visible light.
The filament in a light bulb is made of a long, incredibly thin length
of tungsten metal. In a typical 60-watt bulb, the tungsten filament is
about 6.5 feet (2 meters) long but only one-hundredth of an inch thick.
The tungsten is arranged in a double coil in order to fit it all in a small
space. That is, the filament is wound up to make one coil, and then this
coil is wound to make a larger coil. In a 60-watt bulb, the coil is less than
an inch long.
Tungsten is used in nearly all incandescent light bulbs because it is an
ideal filament material. In the next section, we'll find out why this is, and
we'll examine the role of the glass bulb and inert gas.
The Filament
As we saw in the last section, a metal must be heated to extreme
temperatures before it will emit a useful amount of visible light. Most
metals will actually melt before reaching such extreme temperatures --

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the vibration will break apart the rigid structural bonds between
the atoms so that the material becomes a liquid. Light bulbs are
manufactured with tungsten filaments because tungsten has an
abnormally high melting temperature.
But tungsten will catch on fire at such high temperatures, if the conditions
are right. Combustion is caused by a reaction between two chemicals,
which is set off when one of the chemicals has reached
its ignition temperature. On Earth, combustion is usually a reaction
between oxygen in the atmosphere and some heated material, but other
combinations of chemicals will combust as well.
The filament in a light bulb is housed in a sealed, oxygen-free chamber to
prevent combustion. In the first light bulbs, all the air was sucked out of
the bulb to create a near vacuum -- an area with no matter in it. Since
there wasn't any gaseous matter present (or hardly any), the material
could not combust.
The problem with this approach was the evaporation of the tungsten
atoms. At such extreme temperatures, the occasional tungsten atom
vibrates enough to detach from the atoms around it and flies into the air.
In a vacuum bulb, free tungsten atoms shoot out in a straight line and
collect on the inside of the glass. As more and more atoms evaporate, the
filament starts to disintegrate, and the glass starts to get darker. This
reduces the life of the bulb considerably.
In a modern light bulb, inert gases, typically argon, greatly reduce this
loss of tungsten. When a tungsten atom evaporates, chances are it will
collide with an argon atom and bounce right back toward the filament,
where it will rejoin the solid structure. Since inert gases normally don't
react with other elements, there is no chance of the elements combining
in a combustion reaction.
Cheap, effective and easy-to-use, the light bulb has proved a monstrous
success. It is still the most popular method of bringing light indoors and
extending the day after sundown. But by all indications, it will eventually
give way to more advanced technologies, because it isn't very efficient.
Incandescent light bulbs give off most of their energy in the form of heatcarrying infrared light photons -- only about 10 percent of the light
produced is in the visible spectrum. This wastes a lot of electricity. Cool
light sources, such as fluorescent lamps and LEDs, don't waste a lot of
energy generating heat -- they give off mostly visible light. For this
reason, they are slowly edging out the old reliable light bulb.
How Fluorescent Lamps Work

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You see fluorescent lighting everywhere these days -- in offices, stores,
warehouses, street corners... You'll even find fluorescent lamps in peoples'
homes. But even though they're all around us, these devices are a total
mystery to most people. Just what is going on inside those white tubes?
In this article, we'll find out how fluorescent lamps emit such a bright glow
without getting scalding hot like an ordinary light bulb. We'll also find out
why fluorescent lamps are more efficient than incandescent lighting, and
see how

Let There Be Light

To understand fluorescent lamps, it helps to know a little about light itself.
Light is a form of energy that can be released by an atom. It is made up of
many small particle-like packets that have energy and momentum but no
mass. These particles, called light photons, are the most basic units of
light. (For more information, see How Light Works.)
Atoms release light photons when their electrons become excited. If
you've read How Atoms Work, then you know electrons are the negatively
charged particles that move around an atom's nucleus (which has a net

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positive charge). An atom's electrons have different levels of energy,
depending on several factors, including their speed and distance from the
nucleus. Electrons of different energy levels occupy different orbitals.
Generally speaking, electrons with greater energy move in orbital farther
away from the nucleus.
When atom gains or losses energy, the change is expressed by the
movement of electrons. When something passes energy on to an atom -heat, for example -- an electron may be temporarily boosted to a higher
orbital (farther away from the nucleus). The electron only holds this
position for a tiny fraction of a second; almost immediately, it is drawn
back toward the nucleus, to its original orbital. As it returns to its original
orbital, the electron releases the extra energy in the form of a photon, in
some cases a light photon.
The wavelength of the emitted light depends on how much energy is
released, which depends on the particular position of the electron.
Consequently, different sorts of atoms will release different sorts of light
photons. In other words, the color of the light is determined by what kind
of atom is excited.
This is the basic mechanism at work in nearly all light sources. The main
difference between these sources is the process of exciting the atoms. In
an incandescent light source, such as an ordinary light bulb or gas lamp,
atoms are excited by heat; in a light stick, atoms are excited by a chemical
reaction. Fluorescent lamps have one of the most elaborate systems for
exciting atoms, as we'll see in the next section.

Down the Tubes

The central element in a fluorescent lamp is a sealed glass tube. The tube
contains a small bit of mercury and an inert gas, typically argon, kept
under very low pressure. The tube also contains a phosphor powder,

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coated along the inside of the glass. The tube has two electrodes, one at
each end, which are wired to an electrical circuit. The electrical circuit,
which we'll examine later, is hooked up to an alternating current (AC)
supply.
When you turn the lamp on, the current flows through the electrical circuit
to the electrodes. There is a considerable voltage across the electrodes,
so electrons will migrate through the gas from one end of the tube to the
other. This energy changes some of the mercury in the tube from a liquid
to a gas. As electrons and charged atoms move through the tube, some of
them will collide with the gaseous mercury atoms. These collisions excite
the atoms, bumping electrons up to higher energy levels. When the
electrons return to their original energy level, they release light photons.
As we saw in the last section, the wavelength of a photon is determined
by the particular electron arrangement in the atom. The electrons in
mercury atoms are arranged in such a way that they mostly release light
photons in the ultraviolet wavelength range. Our eyes don't register
ultraviolet photons, so this sort of light needs to be converted into visible
light to illuminate the lamp.
This is where the tube's phosphor powder coating comes in. Phosphors are
substances that give off light when they are exposed to light. When a
photon hits a phosphor atom, one of the phosphor's electrons jumps to a
higher energy level and the atom heats up. When the electron falls back to
its normal level, it releases energy in the form of another photon. This
photon has less energy than the original photon, because some energy
was lost as heat. In a fluorescent lamp, the emitted light is in the visible
spectrum -- the phosphor gives off white light we can see. Manufacturers
can vary the color of the light by using different combinations of
phosphors.
Conventional incandescent light bulbs also emit a good bit of ultraviolet
light, but they do not convert any of it to visible light. Consequently, a lot
of the energy used to power an incandescent lamp is wasted. A
fluorescent lamp puts this invisible light to work, and so is more efficient.
Incandescent lamps also lose more energy through heat emission than do
fluorescent lamps. Overall, a typical fluorescent lamp is four to six times
more efficient than an incandescent lamp. People generally use
incandescent lights in the home, however, since they emit a "warmer"
light -- a light with more red and less blue.
As we've seen, the entire fluorescent lamp system depends on an
electrical current flowing through the gas in the glass tube. In the next

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section, we'll see what a fluorescent lamp needs to do to establish this
current.
Cooking with Gas
In the last section, we saw that mercury atoms in a fluorescent lamps
glass tube are excited by electrons flowing in an electrical current. This
electrical current is something like the current in an ordinary wire, but it
passes through gas instead of through a solid. Gas conductors differ from
solid conductors in a number of ways.
In a solid conductor, electrical charge is carried by free electrons jumping
from atom to atom, from a negatively-charged area to a positivelycharged area. As we've seen, electrons always have a negative charge,
which means they are always drawn toward positive charges. In a gas,
electrical charge is carried by free electrons moving independently of
atoms. Current is also carried by ions, atoms that have an electrical
charge because they have lost or gained an electron. Like electrons, ions
are drawn to oppositely charged areas.
To send a current through gas in a tube, then, a fluorescent light needs to
have two things:
1. Free electrons and ions
2. A difference in charge between the two ends of the tube (a voltage)
Generally, there are few ions and free electrons in a gas, because all of
the atoms naturally maintain a neutral charge. Consequently, it is difficult
to conduct an electrical current through most gases. When you turn on a
fluorescent lamp, the first thing it needs to do is introduce many new free
electrons from both electrodes.

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Start it Up
The classic fluorescent lamp design, which has fallen mostly by the
wayside, used a special starter switch mechanism to light up the tube. You
can see how this system works in the diagram below.
When the lamp first turns on, the path of least resistance is through the
bypass circuit, and across the starter switch. In this circuit, the current
passes through the electrodes on both ends of the tube. These electrodes
are simple filaments, like you would find in an incandescent light bulb.
When the current runs through the bypass circuit, electricity heats up the
filaments. This boils off electrons from the metal surface, sending them
into the gas tube, ionizing the gas.
At the same time, the electrical current sets off an interesting sequence of
events in the starter switch. The conventional starter switch is a small
discharge bulb, containing neon or some other gas. The bulb has two
electrodes positioned right next to each other. When electricity is initially
passed through the bypass circuit, an electrical arc (essentially, a flow of
charged particles) jumps between these electrodes to make a connection.
This arc lights the bulb in the same way a larger arc lights a fluorescent
bulb.

One of the electrodes is a bimetallic strip that bends when it is heated.

The small amount of heat from the lit bulb bends the bimetallic strip so it
makes contact with the other electrode. With the two electrodes touching
each other, the current doesn't need to jump as an arc anymore.
Consequently, there are no charged particles flowing through the gas, and
the light goes out. Without the heat from the light, the bimetallic strip
cools, bending away from the other electrode. This opens the circuit.

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Inside the casing of a conventional fluorescent starter there is a small gas

discharge lamp.
By the time this happens, the filaments have already ionized the gas in
the fluorescent tube, creating an electrically conductive medium. The tube
just needs a voltage kick across the electrodes to establish an electrical
arc. This kick is provided by the lamps ballast, a special sort of
transformer wired into the circuit.
When the current flows through the bypass circuit, it establishes a
magnetic field in part of the ballast. This magnetic field is maintained by
the flowing current. When the starter switch is opened, the current is
briefly cut off from the ballast. The magnetic field collapses, which creates
a sudden jump in current -- the ballast releases its stored energy.

Rapid start and starter switch fluorescent bulbs have two pins that slide
against two contact points in an electrical circuit.
Light Right Away
Today, the most popular fluorescent lamp design is the rapid start lamp.
This design works on the same basic principle as the traditional starter
lamp, but it doesn't have a starter switch. Instead, the lamp's ballast
constantly channels current through both electrodes. This current flow is
configured so that there is a charge difference between the two
electrodes, establishing a voltage across the tube.

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When the fluorescent light is turned on, both electrode filaments heat up
very quickly, boiling off electrons, which ionize the gas in the tube. Once
the gas is ionized, the voltage difference between the electrodes
establishes an electrical arc. The flowing charged particles (red) excite the
mercury atoms (silver), triggering the illumination process.
An alternative method, used in instant-start fluorescent lamps, is to apply
a very high initial voltage to the electrodes. This high voltage creates
a corona discharge. Essentially, an excess of electrons on the electrode
surface forces some electrons into the gas. These free electrons ionize the
gas, and almost instantly the voltage difference between the electrodes
establishes an electrical arc.
No matter how the starting mechanism is configured, the end result is the
same: a flow of electrical current through an ionized gas. This sort of gas
discharge has a peculiar and problematic quality: If the current isn't
carefully controlled, it will continually increase, and possibly explode the
light fixture. In the next section, we'll find out why this is and see how a
fluorescent lamp keeps things running smoothly.

The ballast, starter switch and fluorescent bulb are all wired together in a
simple circuit.
This surge in current helps build the initial voltage needed to establish the
electrical arc through the gas. Instead of flowing through the bypass
circuit and jumping across the gap in the starter switch, the electrical
current flows through the tube. The free electrons collide with the atoms,
knocking loose other electrons, which create ions. The result is plasma, a
gas composed largely of ions and free electrons, all moving freely. This
creates a path for an electrical current.
The impact of flying electrons keeps the two filaments warm, so they
continue to emit new electrons into the plasma. As long as there is AC
current, and the filaments aren't worn out, current will continue to flow
through the tube.

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The problem with this sort of lamp is it takes a few seconds for it to light
up. These days, most fluorescent lamps are designed to light up almost
instantly. In the next section, we'll see how these modern designs work.
Ballast Balance
We saw in the last section that gases don't conduct electricity in the same
way as solids. One major difference between solids and gases is
their electrical resistance (the opposition to flowing electricity). In a solid
metal conductor such as a wire, resistance is a constant at any given
temperature, controlled by the size of the conductor and the nature of the
material.
In a gas discharge, such as a fluorescent lamp, current causes resistance
to decrease. This is because as more electrons and ions flow through a
particular area, they bump into more atoms, which frees up electrons,
creating more charged particles. In this way, current will climb on its own
in a gas discharge, as long as there is adequate voltage (and household
AC current has a lot of voltage). If the current in a fluorescent light isn't
controlled, it can blow out the various electrical components.
Fluorescent lamps ballast works to control this. The simplest sort of
ballast, generally referred to as magnetic ballast, works something like
an inductor. A basic inductor consists of a coil of wire in a circuit, which
may be wound around a piece of metal. If you've read How Electromagnets
Work, you know that when you send electrical current through a wire, it
generates a magnetic field. Positioning the wire in concentric loops
amplifies this field.
This sort of field affects not only objects around the loop, but also the loop
itself. Increasing the current in the loop increases the magnetic field,
which applies a voltage opposite the flow of current in the wire. In short, a
coiled length of wire in a circuit (an inductor) opposes change in the
current flowing through it. The transformer elements in a magnetic ballast
use this principle to regulate the current in a fluorescent lamp.
Ballast can only slow down changes in current -- it can't stop them. But
the alternating current powering a fluorescent light is
constantly reversing itself, so the ballast only has to inhibit increasing
current in a particular direction for a short amount of time. Check out this
site for more information on this process.
Magnetic ballasts modulate electrical current at a relatively low cycle rate,
which can cause a noticeable flicker. Magnetic ballasts may also vibrate at
a low frequency. This is the source of the audible humming sound people
associate with fluorescent lamps.

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Modern ballast designs use advanced electronics to more precisely
regulate the current flowing through the electrical circuit. Since they use a
higher cycle rate, you don't generally notice a flicker or humming noise
coming from electronic ballast. Different lamps require specialized ballasts
designed to maintain the specific voltage and current levels needed for
varying tube designs.
Fluorescent lamps come in all shapes and sizes, but they all work on the
same basic principle: An electric current stimulates mercury atoms, which
causes them to release ultraviolet photons. These photons in turn
stimulate a phosphor, which emits visible light photons. At the most basic
level, that's all there is to it!
How Relays Work
A relay is a simple electromechanical switch made up of an
electromagnet and a set of contacts. Relays are found hidden in all sorts
of devices. In fact, some of the first computers ever built used relays to
implement Boolean gates.
In this article, we will look at how relays work and a few of their
applications
Relay Construction
Relays are amazingly simple devices. There are four parts in every relay:

Electromagnet

Armature that can be attracted by the electromagnet

Spring

Set of electrical contacts

The following figure shows these four parts in action:

In this figure, you can see that a relay consists of two separate and
completely independent circuits. The first is at the bottom and drives
the electromagnet. In this circuit, a switch is controlling power to the
electromagnet. When the switch is on, the electromagnet is on, and it
attracts the armature (blue). The armature is acting as a switch in the
second circuit. When the electromagnet is energized, the armature
completes the second circuit and the light is on. When the electromagnet
is not energized, the spring pulls the armature away and the circuit is not
complete. In that case, the light is dark.

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When you purchase relays, you generally have control over several
variables:

The voltage and current that is needed to activate the armature

The maximum voltage and current that can run through the
armature and the armature contacts

The number of armatures (generally one or two)

The number of contacts for the armature (generally one or two -- the
relay shown here has two, one of which is unused)

Whether the contact (if only one contact is provided)

is normally open (NO) or normally closed (NC)

Relay Applications
In general, the point of a relay is to use a small amount of power in
theelectromagnet -- coming, say, from a small dashboard switch or a lowpower electronic circuit -- to move an armature that is able to switch a
much larger amount of power. For example, you might want the
electromagnet to energize using 5 volts and 50 milliamps (250 mill watts),
while the armature can support 120V AC at 2 amps (240 watts).
Relays are quite common in home appliances where there is an electronic
control turning on something like a motor or a light. They are also
common in cars, where the 12V supply voltage means that just about
everything needs a large amount of current. In later model cars,
manufacturers have started combining relay panels into the fuse box to
make maintenance easier. For example, the six gray boxes in this photo of
a Ford Windstar fuse box are all relays:
In places where a large amount of power needs to be switched, relays are
often cascaded. In this case, a small relay switches the power needed to
drive a much larger relay, and that second relay switches the power to
drive the load.
How Light Works

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Light as Rays
Imagining light as a ray makes it easy to describe, with great accuracy, three wellknown phenomena: reflection, refraction and scattering. Let's take a second to
discuss each one.
In reflection, a light ray strikes a smooth surface, such as a mirror, and bounces
off. A reflected ray always comes off the surface of a material at an angle equal to
the angle at which the incoming ray hit the surface. In physics, you'll hear this
called the law of reflection. You've probably heard this law stated as "the angle of
incidence equals the angle of reflection."
Of course, we live in an imperfect world and not all surfaces are smooth. When light
strikes a rough surface, incoming light rays reflect at all sorts of angles because the
surface is uneven. This scattering occurs in many of the objects we encounter
every day. The surface of paper is a good example. You can see just how rough it is
if you peer at it under a microscope. When light hits paper, the waves are reflected
in all directions. This is what makes paper so incredibly useful -- you can read the
words on a printed page regardless of the angle at which your eyes view the
surface.

Refraction occurs when a ray of light passes from one transparent medium (air,
let's say) to a second transparent medium (water). When this happens, light
changes speed and the light ray bends, either toward or away from what we call
the normal line, an imaginary straight line that runs perpendicular to the surface

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of the object. The amount of bending, or angle of refraction, of the light wave
depends on how much the material slows down the light. Diamonds wouldn't be so
glittery if they didn't slow down incoming light much more than, say, water does.
Diamonds have a higher index of refraction than water, which is to say that those
sparkly, costly light traps slow down light to a greater degree.
Lenses, like those in a telescope or in a pair of glasses, take advantage of refraction.
A lens is a piece of glass or other transparent substance with curved sides for
concentrating or dispersing light rays. Lenses serve to refract light at each
boundary. As a ray of light enters the transparent material, it is refracted. As the
same ray exits, it's refracted again. The net effect of the refraction at these two
boundaries is that the light ray has changed directions. We take advantage of this
effect to correct a person's vision or enhance it by making distant objects appear
closer or small objects appear bigger.
Unfortunately, a ray theory can't explain all of the behaviors exhibited by light. We'll
need a few other explanations, like the one we'll cover next.
Light as Waves
Unlike water waves, light waves follow more complicated paths, and they don't
need a medium to travel through.
When the 19th century dawned, no real evidence had accumulated to prove the
wave theory of light. That changed in 1801 when Thomas Young, an English
physician and physicist, designed and ran one of the most famous experiments in
the history of science. It's known today as the double-slit experiment and
requires simple equipment -- a light source, a thin card with two holes cut side by
side and a screen.
To run the experiment, Young allowed a beam of light to pass through a pinhole and
strike the card. If light contained particles or simple straight-line rays, he reasoned,
light not blocked by the opaque card would pass through the slits and travel in a
straight line to the screen, where it would form two bright spots. This isn't what
Young observed. Instead, he saw a bar code pattern of alternating light and dark
bands on the screen. To explain this unexpected pattern, he imagined light traveling
through space like a water wave, with crests and troughs. Thinking this way, he
concluded that light waves traveled through each of the slits, creating two separate
wave fronts. As these wave fronts arrived at the screen, they interfered with each
other. Bright bands formed where two wave crests overlapped and added together.
Dark bands formed where crests and troughs lined up and canceled each other out
completely.
Young's work sparked a new way of thinking about light. Scientists began referring
to light waves and reshaped their descriptions of reflection and refraction
accordingly, noting that light waves still obey the laws of reflection and refraction.

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Incidentally, the bending of a light wave accounts for some of the visual phenomena
we often encounter, such as mirages. A mirage is an optical illusion caused when
light waves moving from the sky toward the ground are bent by the heated air.
In the 1860s, Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell put the cherry on top of the
light-wave model when he formulated the theory of electromagnetism. Maxwell
described light as a very special kind of wave -- one composed of electric
and magnetic fields. The fields vibrate at right angles to the direction of movement
of the wave, and at right angles to each other. Because light has both electric and
magnetic fields, it's also referred to as electromagnetic radiation.
Electromagnetic radiation doesn't need a medium to travel through, and, when it's
traveling in a vacuum, moves at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per
second). Scientists refer to this as the speed of light, one of the most important
numbers in physics.

Light waves come in a continuous variety of sizes, frequencies and

energies, a continuum known as the electromagnetic spectrum.
Light Frequencies
Once Maxwell introduced the concept of electromagnetic waves, everything clicked
into place. Scientists now could develop a complete working model of light using
terms and concepts, such as wavelength and frequency, based on the structure and
function of waves. According to that model, light waves come in many sizes. The
size of a wave is measured as its wavelength, which is the distance between any
two corresponding points on successive waves, usually peak to peak or trough to
trough. The wavelengths of the light we can see range from 400 to 700 nanometers
(or billionths of a meter). But the full range of wavelengths included in the definition
of electromagnetic radiation extends from 0.1 nanometers, as in gamma rays, to
centimeters and meters, as in radio waves.
Light waves also come in many frequencies. The frequency is the number of waves
that pass a point in space during any time interval, usually one second. We measure
it in units of cycles (waves) per second, or hertz. The frequency of visible light is

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referred to as color, and ranges from 430 trillion hertz, seen as red, to 750 trillion
hertz, seen as violet. Again, the full range of frequencies extends beyond the visible
portion, from less than 3 billion hertz, as in radio waves, to greater than 3 billion
billion hertz (3 x 1019), as in gamma rays.
The amount of energy in a light wave is proportionally related to its frequency: High
frequency light has high energy; low frequency light has low energy. So, gamma
rays have the most energy (part of what makes them so dangerous to humans), and
radio waves have the least. Of visible light, violet has the most energy and red the
least. The whole range of frequencies and energies, shown in the accompanying
figure, is known as the electromagnetic spectrum. Note that the figure isn't
drawn to scale and that visible light occupies only one-thousandth of a percent of
the spectrum.
This might be the end of the discussion, except that Albert Einstein couldn't let
speeding light waves lie. His work in the early 20th century resurrected the old idea
that light, just maybe, was a particle after all.

Solar panels take advantage of the photoelectric effect to power our

homes and businesses.
Light as Particles
Maxwell's theoretical treatment of electromagnetic radiation, including its
description of light waves, was so elegant and predictive that many physicists in the
1890s thought that there was nothing more to say about light and how it worked.
Then, on Dec. 14, 1900, Max Planck came along and introduced a stunningly simple,
yet strangely unsettling, concept: that light must carry energy in discrete quantities.
Those quantities, he proposed, must be units of the basic energy increment, hf,
where h is a universal constant now known as Planck's constant and f is the
frequency of the radiation.
Albert Einstein advanced Planck's theory in 1905 when he studied
the photoelectric effect. First, he began by shining ultraviolet light on the surface
of a metal. When he did this, he was able to detect electrons being emitted from the
surface. This was Einstein's explanation: If the energy in light comes in bundles,

19
then one can think of light as containing tiny lumps, or photons. When these
photons strike a metal surface, they act like billiard balls, transferring their energy
to electrons, which become dislodged from their "parent" atoms. Once freed, the
electrons move along the metal or get ejected from the surface.
The particle theory of light had returned -- with a vengeance. Next, Niels Bohr
applied Planck's ideas to refine the model of an atom. Earlier scientists had
demonstrated that atoms consist of positively charged nuclei surrounded by
electrons orbiting like planets, but they couldn't explain why electrons didn't simply
spiral into the nucleus. In 1913, Bohr proposed that electrons exist in discrete orbits
based on their energy. When an electron jumps from one orbit to a lower orbit, it
gives off energy in the form of a photon.
The quantum theory of light -- the idea that light exists as tiny packets, or particles,
called photons -- slowly began to emerge. Our understanding of the physical world
would no longer be the same.
Wave-Particle Duality
At first, physicists were reluctant to accept the dual nature of light. After all, many
of us humans like to have one right answer. But Einstein paved the way in 1905 by
embracing wave-particle duality. We've already discussed the photoelectric
effect, which led Einstein to describe light as a photon. Later that year, however, he
added a twist to the story in a paper introducing special relativity. In this paper,
Einstein treated light as a continuous field of waves -- an apparent contradiction to
his description of light as a stream of particles. Yet that was part of his genius. He
willingly accepted the strange nature of light and chose whichever attribute best
addressed the problem he was trying to solve.
Today, physicists accept the dual nature of light. In this modern view, they define
light as a collection of one or more photons propagating through space as
electromagnetic waves. This definition, which combines light's wave and particle
nature, makes it possible to rethink Thomas Young's double-slit experiment in this
way: Light travels away from a source as an electromagnetic wave. When it
encounters the slits, it passes through and divides into two wave fronts. These wave
fronts overlap and approach the screen. At the moment of impact, however, the
entire wave field disappears and a photon appears. Quantum physicists often
describe this by saying the spread-out wave "collapses" into a small point.
Similarly, photons make it possible for us to see the world around us. In total
darkness, our eyes are actually able to sense single photons, but generally what we
see in our daily lives comes to us in the form of zillions of photons produced by light
sources and reflected off objects. If you look around you right now, there is probably
a light source in the room producing photons, and objects in the room that reflect
those photons. Your eyes absorb some of the photons flowing through the room, and
that's how you see.

20
But wait. What makes a light source produce photons? We'll get to that. Next.

Producing a Photon
There are many different ways to produce photons, but all of them use the same
mechanism inside an atom to do it. This mechanism involves the energizing of
electrons orbiting each atom's nucleus. How Nuclear Radiation Works describes
protons, neutrons and electrons in some detail. For example, hydrogen atoms have
one electron orbiting the nucleus. Helium atoms have two electrons orbiting the
nucleus. Aluminum atoms have 13 electrons circling the nucleus. Each atom has a
preferred number of electrons zipping around its nucleus.
Electrons circle the nucleus in fixed orbits -- a simplified way to think about it is to
imagine how satellites orbit the Earth. There's a huge amount of theory around
electron orbitals, but to understand light there is just one key fact to understand: An
electron has a natural orbit that it occupies, but if you energize an atom, you can
move its electrons to higher orbitals. A photon is produced whenever an electron in
a higher-than-normal orbit falls back to its normal orbit. During the fall from high
energy to normal energy, the electron emits a photon -- a packet of energy -- with
very specific characteristics. The photon has a frequency, or color, that exactly
matches the distance the electron falls.
You can see this phenomenon quite clearly in gas-discharge lamps. Fluorescent
lamps, neon signs and sodium-vapor lamps are common examples of this kind of
electric lighting, which passes an electric current through a gas to make the gas
emit light. The colors of gas-discharge lamps vary widely depending on the identity
of the gas and the construction of the lamp.
For example, along highways and in parking lots, you often see sodium vapor lights.
You can tell a sodium vapor light because it's really yellow when you look at it. A
sodium vapor light energizes sodium atoms to generate photons. A sodium atom

21
has 11 electrons, and because of the way they're stacked in orbitals one of those
electrons is most likely to accept and emit energy. The energy packets that this
electron is most likely to emit fall right around a wavelength of 590 nanometers.
This wavelength corresponds to yellow light. If you run sodium light through a
prism, you don't see a rainbow -- you see a pair of yellow lines.

Bioluminescence: How Organisms Light Things Up

Another way to make photons, known as chemiluminescence, involves chemical
reactions. When these reactions occur in living organisms such as bacteria, fireflies,
squid and deep-sea fishes, the process is known as bioluminescence. At least two
chemicals are required to make light. Chemists use the generic term luciferin to
describe the one producing the light. They use the termluciferase to describe the
enzyme that drives, or catalyzes, the reaction.
The basic reaction follows a straightforward sequence. First, the luciferase catalyzes
the oxidation of luciferin. In other words, luciferin combines chemically with oxygen
to produce oxyluciferin. The reaction also produces light, usually in the blue or
green region of the spectrum. Sometimes, the luciferin binds with a catalyzing
protein and oxygen in a large structure known as a photo protein. When an ion -typically calcium -- is added to the photo protein, it oxidizes the luciferin, resulting
in light and inactive oxyluciferin.
In marine organisms, the blue light produced by bioluminescence is most helpful
because the wavelength of the light, around 470 nanometers, transmits much
farther in water. Also, most organisms don't have pigments in their visual organs
that enable them to see longer (yellow, red) or shorter (indigo, ultraviolet)
wavelengths. One exception can be found in the Malacosteid family of fishes, also
known as loosejaws. These animals can both produce red light and detect it when
other organisms can't.
Want to know more about how and why living things make light? Check out How
Bioluminescence Works for a deep dive.
We'll heat things up next with incandescence.

22

Incandescence: Creating Light With Heat

Probably the most common way to energize atoms is with heat, and this is the basis
of incandescence. If you heat up a horseshoe with a blowtorch, it will eventually
get red-hot, and if you indulge your inner pyromaniac and heat it even more, it gets
white hot. Red is the lowest-energy visible light, so in a red-hot object the atoms are
just getting enough energy to begin emitting light that we can see. Once you apply
enough heat to cause white light, you are energizing so many different electrons in
so many different ways that all of the colors are being generated -- they all mix
together to look white.
Heat is the most common way we see light being generated -- a normal 75-watt
incandescent bulb is generating light by using electricity to create heat. Electricity
runs through a tungsten filament housed inside a glass sphere. Because the
filament is so thin, it offers a good bit of resistance to the electricity, and this
resistance turns electrical energy into heat. The heat is enough to make the
filament glow white-hot. Unfortunately, this isn't very efficient. Most of the energy
that goes into an incandescent bulb is lost as heat. In fact, a typical light bulb
produces perhaps 15 lumens per watt of input power compared to a fluorescent
bulb, which produces between 50 and 100 lumens per watt.
Combustion offers another way to produce photons. Combustion occurs when a
substance -- the fuel -- combines rapidly with oxygen, producing heat and light. If
you study a campfire or even a candle flame carefully, you will notice a small
colorless gap between the wood or the wick and the flames. In this gap, gases are
rising and getting heated. When they finally get hot enough, the gases combine
with oxygen and are able to emit light. The flame, then, is nothing more than a
mixture of reacting gases emitting visible, infrared and some ultraviolet light.

23

An illustration of a laser
Lasers
An interesting application of the quantum nature of light is the laser. You can get the
whole story on lasers in How Lasers Work, but we're going to cover some of the key
concepts here. Laser is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission
of radiation," which is a tongue-tying way to describe light in which the photons are
all at the same wavelength and have their crests and troughs in phase. Research
physicist Theodore H. Maiman developed the world's first working laser, the ruby
laser, in 1960. The ruby laser contained a ruby crystal, a quartz flash tube,
reflecting mirrors and a power supply.
Let's review how Maiman used these components to create laser light, starting with
the characteristics of ruby. Ruby is an aluminum oxide crystal in which some of the
aluminum atoms have been replaced with chromium atoms. Chromium gives ruby
its characteristic red color by absorbing green and blue light and emitting or
reflecting only red light. Of course, Maiman couldn't use a ruby in its naturally
occurring crystalline state. First, he had to form the ruby crystal into a cylinder.
Next, he wrapped a high-intensity quartz lamp around the ruby cylinder to provide a
flash of white light. The green and blue wavelengths in the flash excited electrons in
the chromium atoms to a higher energy level. As these electrons returned to their
normal state, they emitted their characteristic ruby-red light.
Here's where it got interesting. Maiman placed a fully reflecting mirror on one end of
the crystal and a partially reflecting mirror on the other. The mirrors reflected some
of the red-wavelength photons back and forth inside the ruby crystal. This, in turn,
stimulated other excited chromium atoms to produce more photons, until a flood of
precisely aligned photons bounced back and forth within the laser. At each bounce,
some of the photons escaped, which allowed observers to perceive the beam itself.
Today, scientists make lasers out of many different materials. Some, like the ruby
laser, emit short pulses of light. Others, like helium-neon gas lasers or liquid dye
lasers, emit a continuous beam of light.

24

White light is a mixture of colors.

Making Colors
Visible light is light that the human eye can perceive. When you look at the sun's
visible light, it appears to be colorless, which we call white. Although we can see
this light, white isn't considered part of the visible spectrum. That's because white
light isn't the light of a single color but instead many colors.
When sunlight passes through a glass of water to land on a wall, we see a rainbow
on the wall. This wouldn't happen unless white light were a mixture of all of the
colors of the visible spectrum. Isaac Newton was the first person to demonstrate
this. Newton passed sunlight through a glass prism to separate the colors into
a rainbow spectrum. He then passed sunlight through a second glass prism and
combined the two rainbows. The combination produced white light. His simple
experiment proved conclusively that white light is a mixture of colors.
You can do a similar experiment with three flashlights and three different colors of
cellophane -- red, green and blue (commonly referred to as RGB). Cover one
flashlight with one to two layers of red cellophane and fasten the cellophane with a
rubber band (don't use too many layers or you'll block the light from the flashlight).
Cover another flashlight with blue cellophane and a third flashlight with green
cellophane. Go into a darkened room, turn the flashlights on and shine them against
a wall so that the beams overlap, as shown in the figure. Where red and blue light
overlap, you will see magenta. Where red and green light overlap, you will see
yellow. Where green and blue light overlap, you will see cyan. You will notice that
white light can be made by various combinations, such as yellow with blue,
magenta with green, cyan with red, and by mixing all of the colors together.
By adding various combinations of these so-called additive colors -- red, green and
blue light -- you can make all the colors of the visible spectrum. This is
how computer monitors (RGB monitors) generate colors.

25

Pigments are created by modifying which colors are absorbed.

Pigments and Absorption
Another way to make colors is to absorb some of the frequencies of light, and thus
remove them from the white light combination. The absorbed colors are the ones
you don't see -- you see only the colors that come bouncing back to your eye. This
is known as subtractive color, and it's what happens with paints and dyes. The
paint or dye molecules absorb specific frequencies and bounce back, or reflect,
other frequencies to your eye. The reflected frequency (or frequencies) are what
you see as the color of the object. For example, the leaves of green plants contain a
pigment called chlorophyll, which absorbs the blue and red colors of the spectrum
and reflects the green.
You can explain absorption in terms of atomic structure. The frequency of the
incoming light wave is at or near the vibration frequency of the electrons in the
material. The electrons take in the energy of the light wave and start to vibrate.
What happens next depends upon how tightly the atoms hold on to their electrons.
Absorption occurs when the electrons are held tightly, and they pass the vibrations
along to the nuclei of the atoms. This makes the atoms speed up, collide with other
atoms in the material, and then give up as heat the energy they acquired from the
vibrations.
The absorption of light makes an object dark or opaque to the frequency of the
incoming wave. Wood is opaque to visible light. Some materials are opaque to some
frequencies of light, but transparent to others. Glass is opaque to ultraviolet light,
but transparent to visible light.

Origin of Light
Scientists today accept the existence of photons and their weird wave-particle
behavior. What they still debate is the more existential side of things, such as where

26
light came from in the first place. To answer this question, physicists turn their
attention to the big bang and the few moments that followed.
You might recall that the big bang is the birthing event that gave rise to the
universe. You can read more in How the Big Bang Theory Works, but it will be useful
to remind you of the basics here. About 15 billion years ago, all matter and energy
were bottled up in a small region known as a singularity. In an instant, this single
point of super-dense material began to expand at an incredibly rapid rate. As the
newborn universe expanded, it began to cool down and become less dense. This
allowed more stable particles and photons to form.
Here's what may have happened:
1. Immediately after the big bang, electromagnetism didn't exist as an
independent force. Instead, it was joined to the weak nuclear force.
2. Particles known as B and W bosons also existed at this time.
3. When the universe was just 0.00000000001 seconds old, it had cooled
enough for electromagnetism to break from the weak nuclear force and for
the B and W bosons to combine into photons. The photons mingled freely
with quarks, the smallest building blocks of matter.
4. When the universe was 0.00001 seconds old, quarks combined to form
protons and neutrons.
5. When the universe was 0.01 seconds old, protons and neutrons began to
organize into atoms.
6. Finally, when the universe was the tender age of 380,000 years old, photons
broke free, and light streamed across the dark chasms of space.
This light eventually dimmed and reddened until, finally, the nuclear furnaces in
stars kicked on and began generating new light. Our sun turned on about 4.6 billion
years ago, showering the solar system with photons. Those photons have been
streaming to our humble blue planet ever since. A few fell on the eyes of great
thinkers -- Newton, Huygens, Einstein -- and caused them to stop, to think and to
imagine.

How Solar Cells Work

27

You've probably seen calculators with solar cells -- devices that never
need batteries and in some cases, don't even have an off button. As long as there's
enough light, they seem to work forever. You may also have seen larger solar
panels, perhaps on emergency road signs, call boxes, buoys and even in parking
lots to power the lights.
Although these larger panels aren't as common as solar-powered calculators,
they're out there and not that hard to spot if you know where to look. In
fact, photovoltaics -- which were once used almost exclusively in space, powering
satellites' electrical systems as far back as 1958 -- are being used more and more in
less exotic ways. The technology continues to pop up in new devices all the time,
from sunglasses to electric vehicle charging stations.
The hope for a "solar revolution" has been floating around for decades -- the idea
that one day we'll all use free electricity from the sun. This is a seductive promise,
because on a bright, sunny day, the sun's rays give off approximately 1,000 watts of
energy per square meter of the planet's surface. If we could collect all of that
energy, we could easily power our homes and offices for free.
In this article, we will examine solar cells to learn how they convert the sun's energy
directly into electricity. In the process, you will learn why we're getting closer to
using the sun's energy on a daily basis, and why we still have more research to do
before the process becomes cost-effective.
Photovoltaic Cells: Converting Photons to Electrons
The solar cells that you see on calculators and satellites are also called photovoltaic
(PV) cells, which as the name implies (photo meaning "light" and voltaic meaning

28
"electricity"), convert sunlight directly into electricity. A module is a group of cells
connected electrically and packaged into a frame (more commonly known as a solar
panel), which can then be grouped into larger solar arrays, like the one operating at
Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
Photovoltaic cells are made of special materials called semiconductors such as
silicon, which is currently used most commonly. Basically, when light strikes the cell,
a certain portion of it is absorbed within the semiconductor material. This means
that the energy of the absorbed light is transferred to the semiconductor. The
energy knocks electrons loose, allowing them to flow freely.
PV cells also all have one or more electric field that acts to force electrons freed by
light absorption to flow in a certain direction. This flow of electrons is a current, and
by placing metal contacts on the top and bottom of the PV cell, we can draw that
current off for external use, say, to power a calculator. This current, together with
the cell's voltage (which is a result of its built-in electric field or fields), defines the
power (or wattage) that the solar cell can produce.
That's the basic process, but there's really much more to it. On the next page, let's
take a deeper look into one example of a PV cell: the single-crystal silicon cell.
How Silicon Makes a Solar Cell
Silicon has some special chemical properties, especially in its crystalline form.
An atom of silicon has 14 electrons, arranged in three different shells. The first two
shells -- which hold two and eight electrons respectively -- are completely full. The
outer shell, however, is only half full with just four electrons. A silicon atom will
always look for ways to fill up its last shell, and to do this, it will share electrons with
four nearby atoms. It's like each atom holds hands with its neighbors, except that in
this case, each atom has four hands joined to four neighbors. That's what forms
the crystalline structure, and that structure turns out to be important to this type
of PV cell.
The only problem is that pure crystalline silicon is a poor conductor of electricity
because none of its electrons are free to move about, unlike the electrons in more
optimum conductors like copper. To address this issue, the silicon in a solar cell
has impurities -- other atoms purposefully mixed in with the silicon atoms -- which
changes the way things work a bit. We usually think of impurities as something
undesirable, but in this case, our cell wouldn't work without them. Consider silicon
with an atom of phosphorous here and there, maybe one for every million silicon
atoms. Phosphorous has five electrons in its outer shell, not four. It still bonds with
its silicon neighbor atoms, but in a sense, the phosphorous has one electron that
doesn't have anyone to hold hands with. It doesn't form part of a bond, but there is
a positive proton in the phosphorous nucleus holding it in place.

29
When energy is added to pure silicon, in the form of heat for example, it can cause
a few electrons to break free of their bonds and leave their atoms. A hole is left
behind in each case. These electrons, called free carriers, then wander randomly
around the crystalline lattice looking for another hole to fall into and carrying an
electrical current. However, there are so few of them in pure silicon, that they aren't
very useful.
But our impure silicon with phosphorous atoms mixed in is a different story. It takes
a lot less energy to knock loose one of our "extra" phosphorous electrons because
they aren't tied up in a bond with any neighboring atoms. As a result, most of these
electrons do break free, and we have a lot more free carriers than we would have in
pure silicon. The process of adding impurities on purpose is called doping, and
when doped with phosphorous, the resulting silicon is called N-type ("n" for
negative) because of the prevalence of free electrons. N-type doped silicon is a
much better conductor than pure silicon.
The other part of a typical solar cell is doped with the element boron, which has
only three electrons in its outer shell instead of four, to become P-type silicon.
Instead of having free electrons, P-type ("p" for positive) has free openings and
carries the opposite (positive) charge.
Anatomy of a Solar Cell
Before now, our two separate pieces of silicon were electrically neutral; the
interesting part begins when you put them together. That's because without
an electric field, the cell wouldn't work; the field forms when the N-type and P-type
silicon come into contact. Suddenly, the free electrons on the N side see all the
openings on the P side, and there's a mad rush to fill them. Do all the free electrons
fill all the free holes? No. If they did, then the whole arrangement wouldn't be very
useful. However, right at the junction, they do mix and form something of a barrier,
making it harder and harder for electrons on the N side to cross over to the P side.
Eventually, equilibrium is reached, and we have an electric field separating the two
sides.
This electric field acts as a diode, allowing (and even pushing) electrons to flow
from the P side to the N side, but not the other way around. It's like a hill -- electrons
can easily go down the hill (to the N side), but can't climb it (to the P side).
When light, in the form of photons, hits our solar cell, its energy breaks apart
electron-hole pairs. Each photon with enough energy will normally free exactly one
electron, resulting in a free hole as well. If this happens close enough to the electric
field, or if free electron and free hole happen to wander into its range of influence,
the field will send the electron to the N side and the hole to the P side. This causes
further disruption of electrical neutrality, and if we provide an external current path,
electrons will flow through the path to the P side to unite with holes that the electric
field sent there, doing work for us along the way. The electron flow provides

30
the current, and the cell's electric field causes a voltage. With both current and
voltage, we have power, which is the product of the two.
There are a few more components left before we can really use our cell. Silicon
happens to be a very shiny material, which can send photons bouncing away before
they've done their job, so
an antireflective coating is applied to reduce those losses. The final step is to
install something that will protect the cell from the elements -- often a glass cover
plate. PV modules are generally made by connecting several individual cells
together to achieve useful levels of voltage and current, and putting them in a
sturdy frame complete with positive and negative terminals.
How much sunlight energy does our PV cell absorb? Unfortunately, probably not an
awful lot. In 2006, for example, most solar panels only reached efficiency levels of
about 12 to 18 percent. The most cutting-edge solar panel system that year finally
muscled its way over the industry's long-standing 40 percent barrier in solar
efficiency -- achieving 40.7 percent [source: U.S. Department of Energy]. So why is
it such a challenge to make the most of a sunny day?

The familiar sight of a rainbow represents just a sliver of the greater

electromagnetic spectrum.
Energy Loss in a Solar Cell
Visible light is only part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetic radiation
is not monochromatic -- it's made up of a range of different wavelengths, and
therefore energy levels. (See How Light Works for a good discussion of the
electromagnetic spectrum.)
Light can be separated into different wavelengths, which we can see in the form of
a rainbow. Since the light that hits our cell has photons of a wide range of energies,
it turns out that some of them won't have enough energy to alter an electron-hole

31
pair. They'll simply pass through the cell as if it were transparent. Still other photons
have too much energy. Only a certain amount of energy, measured in electron volts
(eV) and defined by our cell material (about 1.1 eV for crystalline silicon), is required
to knock an electron loose. We call this the band gap energy of a material. If a
photon has more energy than the required amount, then the extra energy is lost.
(That is, unless a photon has twice the required energy, and can create more than
one electron-hole pair, but this effect is not significant.) These two effects alone can
account for the loss of about 70 percent of the radiation energy incident on our cell.
Why can't we choose a material with a really low band gap, so we can use more of
the photons? Unfortunately, our band gap also determines the strength (voltage) of
our electric field, and if it's too low, then what we make up in extra current (by
absorbing more photons), we lose by having a small voltage. Remember
that power is voltage times current. The optimal band gap, balancing these two
effects, is around 1.4 eV for a cell made from a single material.
We have other losses as well. Our electrons have to flow from one side of the cell to
the other through an external circuit. We can cover the bottom with a metal,
allowing for good conduction, but if we completely cover the top, then photons can't
get through the opaque conductor and we lose all of our current (in some cells,
transparent conductors are used on the top surface, but not in all). If we put our
contacts only at the sides of our cell, then the electrons have to travel an extremely
long distance to reach the contacts. Remember, silicon is a semiconductor -- it's not
nearly as good as a metal for transporting current. Its internal resistance
(called series resistance) is fairly high, and high resistance means high losses. To
minimize these losses, cells are typically covered by a metallic contact grid that
shortens the distance that electrons have to travel while covering only a small part
of the cell surface. Even so, some photons are blocked by the grid, which can't be
too small or else its own resistance will be too high.
Solar-powering a House
What would you have to do to power your house with solar energy? Although it's not
as simple as just slapping some modules on your roof, it's not extremely difficult to
do, either.
First of all, not every roof has the correct orientation or angle of inclination to
take full advantage of the sun's energy. Non-tracking PV systems in the Northern
Hemisphere should ideally point toward true south, although orientations that face
in more easterly and westerly directions can work too, albeit by sacrificing varying
degrees of efficiency. Solar panels should also be inclined at an angle as close to the
area's latitude as possible to absorb the maximum amount of energy year-round. A
different orientation and/or inclination could be used if you want to maximize
energy production for the morning or afternoon, and/or the summer or winter. Of
course, the modules should never be shaded by nearby trees or buildings, no

32
matter the time of day or the time of year. In a PV module, if even just one of its
cells is shaded, power production can be significantly reduced.
If you have a house with an unshaded, southward-facing roof, you need to decide
what size system you need. This is complicated by the facts that
your electricity production depends on the weather, which is never completely
predictable, and that your electricity demand will also vary. Luckily, these hurdles
are fairly easy to clear. Meteorological data gives average monthly sunlight levels
for different geographical areas. This takes into account rainfall and cloudy days, as
well as altitude, humidity and other more subtle factors. You should design for the
worst month, so that you'll have enough electricity year-round. With that data and
your average household demand (your utility bill conveniently lets you know how
much energy you use every month), there are simple methods you can use to
determine just how many PV modules you'll need. You'll also need to decide on a
system voltage, which you can control by deciding how many modules to wire in
series.
Solving Solar Power Issues
The thought of living at the whim of the weatherman probably doesn't thrill most
people, but three main options can ensure you still have power even if the sun isn't
cooperating. If you want to live completely off the grid, but don't trust your PV
panels to supply all the electricity you'll need in a pinch, you can use a backup
generator when solar supplies run low. The second stand-alone system involves
energy storage in the form of batteries. Unfortunately, batteries can add a lot of
cost and maintenance to a PV system, but it's currently a necessity if you want to
be completely independent.
The alternative is to connect your house to the utility grid, buying power when you
need it and selling it back when you produce more than you use. This way, the
utility acts as a practically infinite storage system. Keep in mind though,
government regulations vary depending on location and are subject to change. Your
local utility company may or may not be required to participate, and the buyback
price can vary greatly. You'll also probably need special equipment to make sure the
power you're looking to sell the utility company is compatible with their own. Safety
is an issue as well. The utility has to make sure that if there's a power outage in
your neighborhood, your PV system won't continue to feed electricity into power
lines that a lineman will think are dead. This is a dangerous situation
called islanding, but it can be avoided with an anti-islanding inverter -- something
we'll get to on the next page.
If you decide to use batteries instead, keep in mind that they'll have to be
maintained, and then replaced after a certain number of years. Most solar panels
tend to last about 30 years (and improved longevity is certainly one research goal),
but batteries just don't have that kind of useful life [source: National Renewable

33
Energy Laboratory]. Batteries in PV systems can also be very dangerous because of
the energy they store and the acidic electrolytes they contain, so you'll need a wellventilated, nonmetallic enclosure for them.
Although several different kinds of batteries are commonly used, the one
characteristic they should all have in common is that they are deep-cycle
batteries. Unlike your car battery, which is a shallow-cycle battery, deep-cycle
batteries can discharge more of their stored energy while still maintaining long life.
Car batteries discharge a large current for a very short time -- to start your car -and are then immediately recharged as you drive. PV batteries generally have to
discharge a smaller current for a longer period of time (such as at night or during a
power outage), while being charged during the day. The most commonly used deepcycle batteries are lead-acid batteries (both sealed and vented) and nickelcadmium batteries, both of which have various pros and cons.

This simple schematic shows how a residential PV system will often take
shape.
Finishing Your Solar Power Setup
The use of batteries requires the installation of another component called acharge
controller. Batteries last a lot longer if they aren't overcharged or drained too
much. That's what a charge controller does. Once the batteries are fully charged,
the charge controller doesn't let current from the PV modules continue to flow into
them. Similarly, once the batteries have been drained to a certain predetermined
level, controlled by measuring battery voltage, many charge controllers will not
allow more current to be drained from the batteries until they have been recharged.
The use of a charge controller is essential for long battery life.

34
The other problem besides energy storage is that the electricity generated by your
solar panels, and extracted from your batteries if you choose to use them, is not in
the form that's supplied by your utility or used by the electrical appliances in your
house. The electricity generated by a solar system is direct current, so you'll need
an inverter to convert it into alternating current. And like we discussed on the last
page, apart from switching DC to AC, some inverters are also designed to protect
against islanding if your system is hooked up to the power grid.
Most large inverters will allow you to automatically control how your system works.
Some PV modules, called AC modules, actually have an inverter already built into
each module, eliminating the need for a large, central inverter, and simplifying
wiring issues.
Throw in the mounting hardware, wiring, junction boxes, grounding equipment,
overcurrent protection, DC and AC disconnects and other accessories, and you have
yourself a system. You must follow electrical codes (there's a section in the National
Electrical Code just for PV), and it's highly recommended that a licensed electrician
who has experience with PV systems do the installation. Once installed, a PV system
requires very little maintenance (especially if no batteries are used), and will
provide electricity cleanly and quietly for 20 years or more.

Solar cells have long been a mainstay on satellites; where will they end up
in the future?
Developments in Solar Cell Technology
We've talked a lot about how a typical PV system operates, but issues concerning
cost-effectiveness (which we'll get into more on the next page) have spurred
endless research efforts aimed at developing and fine-tuning new ways to make
solar power increasingly competitive with traditional energy sources.
For example, single-crystal silicon isn't the only material used in PV cells.
Polycrystalline silicon is used in an attempt to cut manufacturing costs, although the

35
resulting cells aren't as efficient as single crystal silicon. Second-generation solar
cell technology consists of what's known as thin-film solar cells. While they also
tend to sacrifice some efficiency, they're simpler and cheaper to produce -- and they
become more efficient all the time. Thin-film solar cells can be made from a variety
of materials, including amorphous silicon (which has no crystalline structure),
gallium arsenide, copper indium diselenide and cadmium telluride.
Another strategy for increasing efficiency is to use two or more layers of different
materials with different band gaps. Remember that depending on the substance,
photons of varying energies are absorbed. So by stacking higher band gap material
on the surface to absorb high-energy photons (while allowing lower-energy photons
to be absorbed by the lower band gap material beneath), much higher efficiencies
can result. Such cells, called multi-junction cells, can have more than one electric
field.
Concentrating photovoltaic technology is another promising field of
development. Instead of simply collecting and converting a portion of whatever
sunlight just happens to shine down and be converted into electricity, concentrating
PV systems use the addition of optical equipment like lenses and mirrors to focus
greater amounts of solar energy onto highly efficient solar cells. Although these
systems are generally pricier to manufacture, they have a number of advantages
over conventional solar panel setups and encourage further research and
development efforts.
All these different versions of solar cell technology have companies dreaming up
applications and products that run the gamut, from solar powered planes and
space-based power stations to more everyday items like PV-powered curtains,
clothes and laptop cases. Not even the miniature world of nanoparticles is being left
out, and researchers are even exploring the potential for organically produced solar
cells.
But if photovoltaic are such a wonderful source of free energy, then why doesn't the
whole world run on solar power?
Solar Power Costs
Some people have a flawed concept of solar energy. While it's true that sunlight is
free, the electricity generated by PV systems is not. There are lots of factors
involved in determining whether installing a PV system is worth the price.
First, there's the question of where you reside. People living in sunny parts of the
world start out with a greater advantage than those settled in less sun-drenched
locations, since their PV systems are generally able to generate more electricity. The
cost of utilities in an area should be factored in on top of that. Electricity rates vary
greatly from place to place, so someone living farther north may still want to
consider going solar if their rates are particularly high.

36
Next, there's the installation cost; as you probably noticed from our discussion of a
household PV system, quite a bit of hardware is needed. As of 2009, a residential
solar panel setup averaged somewhere between $8 and $10 per watt to install
[source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory]. The larger the system, the less it
typically costs per watt. It's also important to remember that many solar power
systems don't completely cover the electricity load 100 percent of the time.
Chances are, you'll still have a power bill, although it'll certainly be lower than if
there were no solar panels in place.
Despite the sticker price, there are several potential ways to defray the cost of a PV
system for both residents and corporations willing to upgrade and go solar. These
can come in the form of federal and state tax incentives, utility company rebates
and other financing opportunities. Plus, depending on how large the solar panel
setup is -- and how well it performs -- it could help pay itself off faster by creating
the occasional surplus of power. Finally, it's also important to factor in home value
estimates. Installing a PV system is expected to add thousands of dollars to the
value of a home.
Right now, solar power still has some difficulty competing with the utilities, but
costs are coming down as research improves the technology. Advocates are
confident that PV will one day be cost-effective in urban areas as well as remote
ones. Part of the problem is that manufacturing needs to be done on a large scale to
reduce costs as much as possible. That kind of demand for PV, however, won't exist
until prices fall to competitive levels. It's a catch-22. Even so, as demand and
module efficiencies rise constantly, prices fall, and the world becomes increasingly
aware of the environmental concerns associated with conventional power sources,
it's likely photovoltaics will have a promising future.
How Air Conditioners Work

The first modern air conditioning system was developed in 1902 by a young
electrical engineer named Willis Haviland Carrier. It was designed to solve a
humidity problem at the Sackett- Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company
in Brooklyn, N.Y. Paper stock at the plant would sometimes absorb moisture from the
warm summer air, making it difficult to apply the layered inking techniques of the

37
time. Carrier treated the air inside the building by blowing it across chilled pipes.
The air cooled as it passed across the cold pipes, and since cool air can't carry as
much moisture as warm air, the process reduced the humidity in the plant and
stabilized the moisture content of the paper. Reducing the humidity also had the
side benefit of lowering the air temperature -- and a new technology was born?
Carrier realized he'd developed something with far-reaching potential, and it wasn't
long before air-conditioning systems started popping up in theaters and stores,
making the long, hot summer months much more comfortable
The actual process air conditioners use to reduce the ambient air temperature in a
room is based on a very simple scientific principle. The rest is achieved with the
application of a few clever mechanical techniques. Actually, an air conditioner is
very similar to another appliance in your home -- the refrigerator. Air conditioners
don't have the exterior housing a refrigerator relies on to insulate its cold box.
Instead, the walls in your home keep cold air in and hot air out.
Air-conditioning Basics
Air conditioners use refrigeration to chill indoor air, taking advantage of a
remarkable physical law: When a liquid converts to a gas (in a process called phase
conversion), it absorbs heat. Air conditioners exploit this feature of phase
conversion by forcing special chemical compounds to evaporate and condense over
and over again in a closed system of coils.
The compounds involved are refrigerants that have properties enabling them to
change at relatively low temperatures. Air conditioners also contain fans that move
warm interior air over these cold, refrigerant-filled coils. In fact, central air
conditioners have a whole system of ducts designed to funnel air to and from these
serpentine, air-chilling coils.
When hot air flows over the cold, low-pressure evaporator coils, the refrigerant
inside absorbs heat as it changes from a liquid to a gaseous state. To keep cooling
efficiently, the air conditioner has to convert the refrigerant gas back to a liquid
again. To do that, a compressor puts the gas under high pressure, a process that
creates unwanted heat. All the extra heat created by compressing the gas is then
evacuated to the outdoors with the help of a second set of coils called condenser
coils, and a second fan. As the gas cools, it changes back to a liquid, and the
process starts all over again. Think of it as an endless, elegant cycle: liquid
refrigerant, phase conversion to a gas/ heat absorption, compression and phase
transition back to a liquid again.
It's easy to see that there are two distinct things going on in an air conditioner.
Refrigerant is chilling the indoor air, and the resulting gas is being continually
compressed and cooled for conversion back to a liquid again. On the next page,

38
we'll look at how the different parts of an air conditioner work to make all that
possible.

The Parts of an Air Conditioner

Let's get some housekeeping topics out of the way before we tackle the unique
components that make up a standard air conditioner. The biggest job an air
conditioner has to do is to cool the indoor air. That's not all it does, though. Air
conditioners monitor and regulate the air temperature via a thermostat. They also
have an on board filter that removes airborne particulates from the circulating air.
Air conditioners function as dehumidifiers. Because temperature is a key component
of relative humidity, reducing the temperature of a volume of humid air causes it to
release a portion of its moisture. That's why there are drains and moisture-collecting
pans near or attached to air conditioners, and why air conditioners discharge water
when they operate on humid days.
Still, the major parts of an air conditioner manage refrigerant and move air in two
directions: indoors and outside:

Evaporator - Receives the liquid refrigerant

Condenser - Facilitates heat transfer

Expansion valve - regulates refrigerant flow into the evaporator

Compressor - A pump that pressurizes refrigerant

The cold side of an air conditioner contains the evaporator and a fan that blows air
over the chilled coils and into the room. The hot side contains the compressor,

39
condenser and another fan to vent hot air coming off the compressed refrigerant to
the outdoors. In between the two sets of coils, there's an.
expansion valve. It regulates the amount of compressed liquid refrigerant moving
into the evaporator. Once in the evaporator, the refrigerant experiences a pressure
drop, expands and changes back into a gas.
The compressor is actually a large electric pump that pressurizes the refrigerant
gas as part of the process of turning it back into a liquid. There are some additional
sensors, timers and valves, but the evaporator, compressor, condenser and
expansion valve are the main components of an air conditioner.
Although this is a conventional setup for an air conditioner, there are a couple of
variations you should know about. Window air conditioners have all these
components mounted into a relatively small metal box that installs into a window
opening. The hot air vents from the back of the unit, while the condenser coils and a
fan cool and re-circulate indoor air. Bigger air conditioners work a little differently:
Central air conditioners share a control thermostat with a home's heating system,
and the compressor and condenser, the hot side of the unit, isn't even in the house.
It's in a separate all-weather housing outdoors. In very large buildings, like hotels
and hospitals, the exterior condensing unit is often mounted somewhere on the roof.

Window and Split-system AC Units

40
A window air conditioner unit implements a complete air conditioner in a small
space. The units are made small enough to fit into a standard window frame. You
close the window down on the unit, plug it in and turn it on to get cool air. If you
take the cover off of an unplugged window unit, you'll find that it contains:

A compressor

An expansion valve

A hot coil (on the outside)

A chilled coil (on the inside)

Two fans

A control unit

The fans blow air over the coils to improve their ability to dissipate heat (to the
outside air) and cold (to the room being cooled).
When you get into larger air-conditioning applications, its time to start looking at
split-system units. A split-system air conditioner splits the hot side from the cold
side of the system, as in the diagram below.
The cold side, consisting of the expansion valve and the cold coil, is generally
placed into a furnace or some other air handler. The air handler blows air through
the coil and routes the air throughout the building using a series of ducts. The hot
side, known as the condensing unit, lives outside the building.
The unit consists of a long, spiral coil shaped like a cylinder. Inside the coil is a fan,
to blow air through the coil, along with a weather-resistant compressor and some
control logic. This approach has evolved over the years because it's low-cost, and
also because it normally results in reduced noise inside the house (at the expense of
increased noise outside the house). Other than the fact that the hot and cold sides
are split apart and the capacity is higher (making the coils and compressor larger),
there's no difference between a split-system and a window air conditioner.
In warehouses, large business offices, malls, big department stores and other
sizeable buildings, the condensing unit normally lives on the roof and can be quite
massive. Alternatively, there may be many smaller units on the roof, each attached
inside to a small air handler that cools a specific zone in the building.
In larger buildings and particularly in multi-story buildings, the split-system
approach begins to run into problems. Either running the pipe between the
condenser and the air handler exceeds distance limitations (runs that are too long
start to cause lubrication difficulties in the compressor), or the amount of duct work

41
and the length of ducts becomes unmanageable. At this point, it's time to think
about a chilled-water system.

Chilled-water and Cooling-tower AC Units

Although standard air conditioners are very popular, they can use a lot of energy
and generate quite a bit of heat. For large installations like office buildings, air
handling and conditioning is sometimes managed a little differently.
Some systems use water as part of the cooling process. The two most well-known
are chilled water systems and cooling tower air conditioners.

Chilled water systems - In a chilled-water system, the entire air conditioner

is installed on the roof or behind the building. It cools water to between 40
and 45 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 and 7.2 degrees Celsius). The chilled water is
then piped throughout the building and connected to air handlers. This can
be a versatile system where the water pipes work like the evaporator coils in
a standard air conditioner. If it's well-insulated, there's no practical distance
limitation to the length of a chilled-water pipe.

Cooling tower technology - In all of the air conditioning systems we've

described so far, air is used to dissipate heat from the compressor coils. In
some large systems, a cooling tower is used instead. The tower creates a
stream of cold water that runs through a heat exchanger, cooling the hot
condenser coils. The tower blows air through a stream of water causing some
of it to evaporate, and the evaporation cools the water stream. One of the

42
disadvantages of this type of system is that water has to be added regularly
to make up for liquid lost through evaporation. The actual amount of cooling
that an air conditioning system gets from a cooling tower depends on the
relative humidity of the air and the barometric pressure.
Because of rising electrical costs and environmental concerns, some other air
cooling methods are being explored, too. One is off-peak or ice-cooling technology.
An off-peak cooling system uses ice frozen during the evening hours to chill interior
air during the hottest part of the day. Although the system does use energy, the
largest energy drain is when community demand for power is at its lowest. Energy is
less expensive during off-peak hours, and the lowered consumption during peak
times eases the demand on the power grid.
Another option is geo-thermal heating. It varies, but at around 6 feet (1.8 meters)
underground, the earth's temperature ranges from 45 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2
to 23.8 degrees Celsius). The basic idea behind
Geo-thermal cooling is to use this constant temperature as a heat or cold source
instead of using electricity to generate heat or cold. The most common type of geothermal unit for the home is a closed-loop system. Polyethylene pipes filled with a
liquid mixture are buried underground. During the winter, the fluid collects heat
from the earth and carries it through the system and into the building. During the
summer, the system reverses itself to cool the building by pulling heat through the
pipes to deposit it underground.
For real energy efficiency, solar powered air conditioners are also making their
debut. There may still be some kinks to work out, but around 5 percent of all
electricity consumed in the U.S. is used to power air conditioning of one type or
another, so there's a big market for energy-friendly air conditioning options.
BTU and EER
Most air conditioners have their capacity rated in British thermal units (Btu). A Btu is
the amount of heat necessary to raise the temperature of 1 pound (0.45 kilograms)
of water one degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius). One Btu equals 1,055 joules.
In heating and cooling terms, one ton equals 12,000 Btu.
A typical window air conditioner might be rated at 10,000 Btu. For comparison, a
typical 2,000-square-foot (185.8 square meters) house might have a 5-ton (60,000Btu) air conditioning system, implying that you might need perhaps 30 Btu per
square foot. These are rough estimates. To size an air conditioner accurately for
your specific application, you should contact an HVAC contractor.
The energy efficiency rating (EER) of an air conditioner is its Btu rating over
its wattage. As an example, if a 10,000-Btu air conditioner consumes 1,200 watts,

43
its EER is 8.3 (10,000 Btu/1,200 watts). Obviously, you would like the EER to be as
high as possible, but normally a higher EER is accompanied by a higher price.
Let's say you have a choice between two 10,000-Btu units. One has an EER of 8.3
and consumes 1,200 watts, and the other has an EER of 10 and consumes 1,000
watts. Let's also say that the price difference is $100. To determine the payback
period on the more expensive unit, you need to know approximately how many
hours per year you will be operating the air conditioner and how much a kilowatthour (kWh) costs in your area.
Assuming you plan to use the air conditioner six hours a day for four months of the
year, at a cost of $0.10/kWh. The difference in energy consumption between the
two units is 200 watts. This means that every five hours the less expensive unit will
consume one additional kWh (or $0.10) more than the more expensive unit.
Let's do the math: With roughly 30 days in a month, you're operating the air
conditioner:
4 months x 30 days per month x 6 hours per day = 720 hours
[(720 hours x 200 watts) / (1000 watts/kilowatt)] x $0.10/kilowatt hours = $14.40
The more expensive air conditioning unit costs $100 more to purchase but less
money to operate. In our example, it'll take seven years for the higher priced unit to
break even.
Energy Efficient Cooling Systems
Because of the rising costs of electricity and a growing trend to "go green," more
people are turning to alternative cooling methods to spare their pocketbooks and
the environment. Big businesses are even jumping on board in an effort to improve
their public image and lower their overhead.
Ice cooling systems are one way that businesses are combating high electricity
costs during the summer. Ice cooling is as simple as it sounds. Large tanks of water
freeze into ice at night, when energy demands are lower. The next day, a system
much like a conventional air conditioner pumps the cool air from the ice into the
building. Ice cooling saves money, cuts pollution, eases the strain on the power grid
and can be used alongside traditional systems. The downside of ice cooling is that
the systems are expensive to install and require a lot of space. Even with the high
startup costs, more than 3,000 systems are in use worldwide]. You can read more
about ice cooling in Are Ice Blocks Better than Air Conditioning?
An ice cooling system is a great way to save money and conserve energy, but its
price tag and space requirements limit it to large buildings. One way that
homeowners can save on energy costs is by installing geo-thermal heating and
cooling systems, also known as ground source heat pumps (GSHP). The

44
Environmental Protection Agency recently named geo-thermal units "the most
energy-efficient and environmentally sensitive of all space conditioning systems".
Although it varies, at six feet underground the Earth's temperatures range from 45
to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The basic principle behind geo-thermal cooling is to use
this constant temperature as a heat source instead of generating heat with
electricity.
The most common type of geo-thermal unit for homes is the closed-loop system.
Polyethylene pipes are buried under the ground, either vertically like a well or
horizontally in three- to six-foot trenches. They can also be buried under ponds.
Water or an anti-freeze/water mixture is pumped through the pipes. During the
winter, the fluid collects heat from the earth and carries it through the system and
into the building. During the summer, the system reverses itself to cool the building
by pulling heat from the building, carrying it through the system and placing it in
the ground [source: Geo Heating].
Homeowners can save 30 to 50 percent on their cooling bills by replacing their
traditional HVAC systems with ground source heat pumps. The initial costs can be
up to 30 percent more, but that money can be recouped in three to five years, and
most states offer financial purchase incentives. Another benefit is that the system
lasts longer than traditional units because it's protected from the elements and
immune to theft.
Are ice blocks better than air conditioning?

Air conditioning with ice blocks is taking root among some of the world's
most powerful companies. See more pictures of air conditioners.

45
HEATING & COOLING
A novel method of conditioning is taking root among some of the world's most
powerful corporations, and it uses the simple power of ice. Morgan Stanley and
Credit Suisse now use massive ice blocks instead of traditional air-conditioning
systems in some of their offices. Credit Suisse is considering expanding the system
beyond its 1.9-million-square-foot Manhattan office to its other locations around
the world, but they won't be alone. An estimated 3,000 facilities around the world
use ice-based cooling systems
The system is not only more environmentally friendly but also saves big companies
like Goldman Sachs, which put an ice cooling system in its new flagship office,
millions of dollars in utility bills. The system works by making ice at night, when
lower power usage means energy is cheaper and lower temperatures mean less
power is required to freeze water. The larger the difference between nighttime and
daytime temperatures is, the greater the energy savings. In Credit Suisse's system,
the ice forms overnight, and as it melts during the day, fans blow cold air into the
cooling system and throughout the building. At the end of the day, the 51,200
gallons of water -- spread across three rooms in 64 tanks -- is ready to be frozen
again. The ice-block system can also be combined with traditional air conditioning,
which is the case in Credit Suisse's New York office.
The ice system essentially acts like an ultra-efficient battery, storing energy that's
gathered cheaply at night and releasing it during the day. Ice makes a convenient
and efficient medium for the job. By volume, it has up to triple the energy-holding
capacity of water. The system also has less potential for breakdown compared to
more traditional systems.
The ice cooling system is intriguing and energy efficient, but it's not entirely
original. In the 19th century, a hospital in Florida used ice to cool hospital rooms
and many a home chemist has used ice to cool himself on a hot day. Still, you're
unlikely to find an ice-based cooling system in someone's home. The cooling
equipment requires a lot of space and a significant upfront investment -- Credit
Suisse paid $3 million for theirs -- though the investment presumably pays for itself
over time.
The state of New York, along with other state and municipal governments, is
encouraging companies to make environmentally-friendly infrastructure
investments, in some cases offering tax breaks or grants. The pollution and waste
caused by skyscrapers constitutes a major problem for large systems. Ice-cooling
systems do more than save on electricity bills; by using power at night, they ease
strain on already overtaxed electrical grids -- a process known as "load shifting" -using energy during non-peak hours.

46

Several companies, such as Ice Energy, now offer products that work with
or in place of traditional air conditioners in order to reduce energy use.
More Alternatives to Air Conditioning
Every year, Americans' heating and cooling systems produce 300 billion pounds of
carbon dioxide. Fortunately, the European Union outlawed the refrigerants used in
some old air conditioners that harm the ozone layer, and they will be illegal in the
United States in 2010. But the booming economies of India and China and the
accompanying rise in living conditions in those countries now means that millions of
people are buying energy-draining, ozone-layer-depleting air-conditioning units. In
other words, air conditioning is only making global warming worse, but what can be
done to make air conditioning units more efficient? Should more environmentally
friendly cooling methods replace all conventional air conditioners? We'll take a look
at some options in this section.
A company called Ice Energy manufactures the Ice Bear, a unit designed to work
alongside a traditional air conditioner. Like the large system used by Credit Suisse,
the Ice Bear is designed to run indoors and at night, when temperatures and energy
costs are lower. Ice Bear creates a block of ice at night that cools the refrigerant
during the day, rather than running the refrigerant through a condenser (at peak
hours) that requires a lot of energy.

47
Underneath the Jordan Quad Parking Lot at Stanford University, 360 miles of piping
run through a four-million-gallon tank of water. At night, subzero ammonia -- a
common refrigerant -- runs through the pipes, freezing the water into giant blocks of
ice. The system, which is one of the largest of its kind in the United States, sends
cold water from the melting ice throughout Stanford's campus, cooling buildings
from noon to 6 p.m. When the facility was first built in the mid-1970s, it skipped the
ice stage, instead directly cooling water that was piped through campus. A $22
million renovation -- completed in 1999 -- converted it to its present form, which
saves the university a reported $500,000 a year on energy bills.
Evaporative coolers, also known as swamp coolers, are another popular
alternative. These coolers don't use refrigerants. Instead, they use the cooling effect
of water evaporation to lower air temperature. You've probably experienced the
same effect after a game of basketball or a workout session. While you may initially
feel hot from exertion, as sweat evaporates from your body, you'll likely start to feel
chilly. Evaporative coolers utilize the same principle. They're also light on energy
consumption but are often maintenance intensive and require leaving some
windows open.
You may be familiar with a variety of other alternatives to traditional air conditioning
systems. Opening windows to allow a draft in and using fans are both common
cooling methods that aren't energy intensive. Good insulation and situating your
house to take advantage of natural wind currents can lessen or eliminate the need
for a cooling system, particularly if you live in a moderate climate.
If your home or office already has an air-conditioning system, there are still some
things you can do. First, make sure it's a modern unit without any ozoneharming refrigerants. Close all windows when your air conditioner is running, and
look into renewable power sources like roof-mounted solar panels. If you have a
window-mounted air conditioner, seal the area around it and get an energy-efficient
model (if you don't plan to switch to central air). Finally, make sure your home or
office central-air conditioner fits the space. If yours is too big, you'll be constantly
turning it on and off, wasting energy in the process.
Gas (substance)
Gas, in physics and chemistry, any substance that expands and spreads indefinitely
when not confined in a container. A gas thus has no shape of its own, but takes on
the shape of its container. The gaseous state is one of the three basic states, or
forms, in which all matter exists. (The two other states are solid and liquid.) Gases
and liquids are both fluids and have certain properties in common.
A gas can be changed into a liquid or solid by being cooled or compressed, or both;
a solid or liquid can be changed into a gas by the application of heat. A substance
that is in the solid or liquid state at ordinary temperatures is called a vapor when it
is in the gaseous form. Steam is water vapor at a high temperature.

48
A gas consisting of one kind of chemical element is an elementary gas. At ordinary
temperatures and pressures, there are 12 such gases: argon, chlorine, fluorine,
helium, hydrogen, krypton, neon, nitrogen, oxygen, ozone, radon, and xenon.
A gas consisting of molecules made up of atoms of more than one kind of element is
a compound gas. Ammonia and carbon monoxide are common compound gases.
Molecules or atoms of gases can be changed into ions (electrically charged
molecules or atoms) by being heated. A mixture of positively charged gas ions and
electrons is called a plasma.
Properties of Gases
Gases vary widely in their physical and chemical characteristics. Some, such as
oxygen, have neither color nor odor. Chlorine, on the other hand, is yellowish-green
and has a distinct odor. Some gases burn in the presence of oxygen, others do not.
The six inert (or noble) gasesargon, helium, krypton, neon, radon, and xenon
consist of single atoms that do not ordinarily combine with other elements to form
chemical compounds.
Despite these variations, gases have certain properties in common. These include
the following:
Molecular Arrangement
A gas is made up of molecules or single atoms. (Single gas atoms are regarded as
molecules by chemists and physicists.) Gas molecules are much farther apart than
are molecules of solids or of liquids and move about at higher speeds. According to
Avogadro's Law, a hypothesis first stated by the Italian physicist and chemist
Amedeo Avogadro in 1811, equal volumes of different gases, under the same
conditions of temperature and pressure, contain the same number of molecules.
Avogadro's Law has been verified experimentally. Under standard conditions of
temperature (0 C.) and pressure (760 mm of mercury), the volume occupied by
one grammolecular weight of any gas is 22.4 liters (about 0.79 cubic foot). The
number of molecules contained in this volume has been determined to be about
6.023 X 1023, or 602,300 followed by 18 more zeroes. This figure is called
Avogadro's number.
Diffusion and Pressure
Because of the rapid motion of its molecules, a gas will diffuse, or spread uniformly.
In diffusing, it can mix with another gas or with certain liquids and solids.
When a gas is confined to a container, the moving gas molecules continually strike
the container's inside walls, exerting pressure. The molecules move in such a way
that the pressure is the same at every point on the inside walls of the container.

49
Increasing the amount of gas without changing the size of the container increases
the pressure. Heating the gas also increases the pressure, because the molecules
move more rapidly as the temperature increases.
Compression and Expansion
Outside pressure applied to a gas decreases the volume of the gas (the space it
occupies). This is because the molecules are pressed closer together. If the
temperature is constant, the volume of the gas decreases in inverse proportion to
the pressure applied. Thus the greater the pressure exerted on the gas, the less the
volume of the gas. This principle is called Boyle's Law. The law does not hold true
for all gases at all temperatures.
A volume of gas can be expanded (1) by increasing its temperature (causing the
molecules to move more rapidly and thus travel further); or (2) by decreasing the
pressure applied to the gas. All gases expand at the same rate under the same
conditions. The relation between temperature and the volume of a gas is given by
Charles' Law.
Liquefaction
A gas can be liquefied by being cooled or compressed or both. Each gas has its own
critical temperaturethe temperature above which it cannot be liquefied, no matter
how great the applied pressure. A few gases, such as ammonia and nitrous oxide,
can be liquefied at room temperatureif enough pressure is applied to the gas.
Some gases, such as helium and hydrogen, require extremely low temperatures for
liquefaction to occur.
Liquid
Liquid, a state of matter with properties midway between those of solids and gases.
Water is the most familiar liquid. Liquid molecules have more cohesion (mutual
attraction) than gas molecules but less than solid molecules. Hence, unlike a gas, a
liquid has a definite volume; but unlike a solid, it has no fixed shape. It is shaped by
its container.
Cohesion accounts for surface tension. The surface molecules of a liquid, drawn to
each other and pulled down by those below, behave like a stretched elastic
membrane. Surface tension, combined with adhesion (the attraction of molecules
for other substances) explains capillarity, the tendency of liquids to rise in narrow
tubes.
Liquids may evaporate, boil, condense, freeze, and form solutions. They are capable
of diffusion and osmosis, and of transferring heat by conduction and convection.
Liquids flow, but they also have viscosity (resistance to flowing). They also possess
buoyant force.

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How Refrigerators Work

Can you imagine what life was like before the refrigerator came along.
The next time you indulge in an ice cold drink on a hot day, you have your
refrigerator (and onboard freezer) to thank for the refreshingly chilled beverage. It
wasn't so long ago that you'd have to be very rich or well connected to score a
chilled drink with a few ice cubes floating inside. Today, we take refrigeration for
granted, but once upon a time, fortunes were made shipping large blocks of ice
around the world in insulated holds to sell to the rich.
Before refrigeration, preserving food was a big job. You could salt foods, and in
winter, you could bury food in a snow drift and hope the critters didn't find it. To
stay stocked with the essentials, though, you had to work at it -- or be rolling in
money. Refrigeration is one invention that changed the way we conduct our daily
lives. We can preserve food more easily nowadays, so we have much less to worry
about when it comes to food-borne illnesses. The food supply is more stable, too.
That gallon of milk can last a couple of weeks in the fridge as opposed to a couple of
hours on your countertop. That's huge. It means you don't need to keep a cow in
your backyard if you want a regular supply of milk.
The fundamentals of refrigeration are also at work in another important household
appliance: the air conditioner. It's estimated that around 5 percent of all the
electrical energy used in the U.S. is expended to keep our homes cool. That's pretty
amazing, especially when you consider the fact that the principle behind most
refrigeration is simple. Here it is in one sentence: When a liquid evaporates, it
absorbs heat in the process. If you want to get rid of heat, you need to coax a liquid
to convert to its gaseous state

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The Purpose of Refrigeration
The fundamental reason for having a refrigerator is to keep food cold. Cold
temperatures help food stay fresh longer. The basic idea behind refrigeration is to
slow down the activity of bacteria (which all food contains) so that it takes longer for
the bacteria to spoil the food.
For example, bacteria will spoil milk in two or three hours if the milk is left out on
the kitchen counter at room temperature. However, by reducing the temperature of
the milk, it will stay fresh for a week or two -- the cold temperature inside the
refrigerator decreases the activity of the bacteria that much. By freezing the milk
you can stop the bacteria altogether and the milk can last for months (until effects
like freezer burn begin to spoil the milk in non-bacterial ways).
Refrigeration and freezing are two of the most common forms of food preservation
used today. For more information on other ways to preserve food,

Parts of a Refrigerator
If you pour a little rubbing alcohol on your skin, it'll feel cold -- really cold. It isn't
refrigerated, so how does this happen? Well, alcohol evaporates at room
temperature the way water evaporates at a low temperature in an oven. As it
evaporates, it absorbs the heat on the surface of your skin, making your skin cooler.
A special coolant called a refrigerant functions in a refrigerator the way alcohol
works on your skin, except in a refrigerator, the coolant is trapped inside a series of
coils. As it makes a circuit through them, it changes back and forth from a liquid to
a gas.
To pull off this frosty feat, a refrigerator uses five major components:

Compressor

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Heat-exchanging pipes (serpentine or coiled set of pipes outside the unit)

Expansion valve

Heat-exchanging pipes (serpentine or coiled set of pipes inside the unit)

Refrigerant (liquid that evaporates inside the refrigerator to create the cold
temperatures)

Understanding Refrigeration
To understand what's happening inside a refrigerator, let's learn a little more about
how refrigerants work. You will need:

An oven-safe glass bowl filled with water

A thermometer that can measure up to at least 450 degrees Fahrenheit

(232.2 degrees Celsius)

Add the thermometer to the water filled bowl and place both in the oven. Set the
oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204.4 degrees Celsius).
As the oven heats up, the temperature of the water will rise until it hits 212
Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) and it starts boiling. The water temperature will
stay at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) even though it's completely
surrounded by the 400 degrees Fahrenheit environment inside the oven. If you let
all the water boil away, the temperature on the thermometer will shoot up to 400
degrees Fahrenheit (232.2 degrees Celsius).
Let's look at this experiment another way: Imagine the existence of an exotic
creature able to live happily in an oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Let's call him
Max. If Max is hanging out in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven next to a bowl of water
boiling away at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), how is he going to
feel about that water? He's going to think the boiling water is really cold. After all,
the boiling water is 188 degrees colder than the 400 degrees Fahrenheit that he
thinks is comfortable. That's a big temperature difference!
This is exactly what happens when humans deal with liquid nitrogen. We feel
comfortable at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21.1 degrees Celsius), but liquid nitrogen
boils at -320 degrees Fahrenheit (-195.5 degrees Celsius). If you had a pot of liquid
nitrogen sitting on the kitchen table, its temperature would be boiling away at -320
degrees Fahrenheit (-195.5 degrees Celsius) -- to you, of course, it would feel
incredibly cold (so cold it would burn you!).
Modern refrigerators use a regenerating cycle to reuse the same refrigerant over
and over again. You can get an idea of how this works by remembering Max and his

53
bowl of water. He could easily create a regenerating cycle by taking the following
steps:
1. The bowl of water in the oven example boils away, remaining at 212 degrees
Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) but producing lots of 400 degree Fahrenheit
steam. Let's say Max collects this steam in a big bag.
2. Once all the water boils off, Max pressurizes the steam into a steel container,
where the temperature rises to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (426.6 degrees
Celsius) as the pressure increases. Now, Max thinks the steel container feels
really "hot" because it contains 800 degree Fahrenheit (426.6 degrees
Celsius) steam instead of 400 degree Fahrenheit steam.
3. The steel container releases or dissipates its excess heat to the air in the
oven, and it eventually drops to the oven's temperature of 400 degrees
Fahrenheit. In the process, the high-pressure steam in the container
condenses into pressurized water.
4. At this point, Max releases the water from the steel pressurized container into
a pot, and it immediately begins to boil, its temperature dropping to 212
degrees Fahrenheit.
By repeating these four steps, Max can reuse the same water over and over again
to provide refrigeration.
The Refrigeration Cycle
The refrigerator in your kitchen uses a cycle that is similar to the one described in
the previous section. But in your refrigerator, the cycle is continuous. In the
following example, we will assume that the refrigerant being used is pure ammonia,
which boils at -27 degrees F. This is what happens to keep the refrigerator cool:
1. The compressor compresses the ammonia gas. The compressed gas heats
up as it is pressurized (orange).
2. The coils on the back of the refrigerator let the hot ammonia gas dissipate its
heat. The ammonia gas condenses into ammonia liquid (dark blue) at high
pressure.
3. The high-pressure ammonia liquid flows through the expansion valve. You
can think of the expansion valve as a small hole. On one side of the hole is
high-pressure ammonia liquid. On the other side of the hole is a low-pressure
area (because the compressor is sucking gas out of that side).
4. The liquid ammonia immediately boils and vaporizes (light blue), its
temperature dropping to -27 F. This makes the inside of the refrigerator cold.

54
5. The cold ammonia gas is sucked up by the compressor, and the cycle
repeats.
By the way, if you have ever turned your car off on a hot summer day when you
have had the air conditioner running, you may have heard a hissing noise under the
hood. That noise is the sound of high-pressure liquid refrigerant flowing through the
expansion valve.
Pure ammonia gas is highly toxic to people and would pose a threat if the
refrigerator were to leak, so all home refrigerators don't use pure ammonia. You
may have heard of refrigerants know as CFCs(chlorofluorocarbons), originally
developed by Du Pont in the 1930s as a non-toxic replacement for ammonia. CFC-12
(dichlorodifluoromethane) has about the same boiling point as ammonia. However,
CFC-12 is not toxic to humans, so it is safe to use in your kitchen. Many large
industrial refrigerators still use ammonia.
In the 1970s, it was discovered that the CFCs then in use are harmful to the ozone
layer, so as of the 1990s, all new refrigerators and air conditioners use refrigerants
that are less harmful to the ozone layer.
Gas and Propane Refrigerators
If you own an RV, chances are you have a gas- or propane-powered refrigerator.
These refrigerators are interesting because they have no moving parts and use gas
or propane as their primary energy source. Also, they use heat to produce the cold
inside the refrigerator.
A gas refrigerator uses ammonia as the coolant, and water, ammonia and hydrogen
gas to create a continuous cycle for the ammonia. The refrigerator has five main
parts:

Generator - creates ammonia gas

Separator - separates the ammonia gas from water

Condenser - where hot ammonia gas is cooled and condensed to create

liquid ammonia

Evaporator - where liquid ammonia converts to a gas to create cold

temperatures inside the refrigerator

Absorber - absorbs the ammonia gas in water

It works like this:

1. Heat is applied to the ammonia and water solution in the generator. (The heat
comes from burning gas, propane or kerosene.)

55
2. As the mixture reaches the boiling point of ammonia, it flows into the
separator.
3. Ammonia gas flows upward into the condenser, dissipates heat and converts
back to a liquid.
4. The liquid ammonia makes its way to the evaporator where it mixes with
hydrogen gas and evaporates, producing cold temperatures inside the
refrigerator's cold box.
5. The ammonia and hydrogen gases flow to the absorber where the water
collected in the separator in step No. 2 mixes with the ammonia and
hydrogen gases.
6. The ammonia forms a solution with the water and releases the hydrogen gas,
which flows back to the evaporator.
7. The ammonia-and-water solution flows toward the generator to repeat the
cycle.

Electric and Solar Coolers

You won't need a bag of ice to keep your potato salad cold if you have a handy
cooler that plugs into your cigarette lighter. It uses a unique process known as the
Peltier effect, a thermoelectric effect, to produce cold temperatures. It's pretty neat,
and something we haven't discussed yet.
Named after the French 19th century physicist who discovered it, you can create the
Peltier effect yourself using a battery, two pieces of copper wire, and a piece of
bismuth or iron wire. Attach the copper wires to the two poles of the battery, and
then connect the bismuth or iron wire between the two pieces of copper wire. (The
bismuth/iron and copper have to be touching -- it's this connection that causes the
Peltier effect.)
The junction where current flows from copper to bismuth will start to get hot, and
the junction where current flows from bismuth to the copper junction will get cold.
The maximum temperature drop is about 40 degrees Fahrenheit (22.2 degrees
Celsius) from the ambient temperature at the hot junction.
As you'd expect, in an electric cooler the hot junction is placed outside the unit, and
the cold junction is placed inside. To amplify the effect, coolers contain lots and lots
of junctions.

56
Electric coolers aren't the only unique inventions out there designed to chill your
lunch. Solar powered refrigerators are another option. If you plan to spend time
camping (or want to start your own hot dog stand), you may want chilled beverages
but not have the electricity to power a standard refrigerator. By now, you won't be
surprised that a number of energy solutions can provide power to refrigeration
systems. In a solar powered refrigerator, a simple solar panel does the honors.
Using the sun's rays to make something cold? Now that's ingenious
.
Cold Packs
Speaking of refrigeration and coldness, have you ever used one of those "instant
cold packs" that looks like a plastic bag filled with liquid. You hit it, shake it up and it
gets extremely cold. What's going on here?
The liquid inside the cold pack is water. In the water is another plastic bag or tube
containing ammonium-nitrate fertilizer. When you hit the cold pack, it breaks
the tube so that the water mixes with the fertilizer. This mixture creates
an endothermic reaction -- it absorbs heat. The temperature of the solution falls to
about 35 F for 10 to 15 minutes.
How Water Heaters Work

A gas heater looks like an electric unit, except that it doesn't contain the
two heating elements. It has a gas burner at the bottom, with the chimney
running up through the middle of the tank.

57
The water coming into your home makes a journey through a system of pipes, and
it's usually cold or cool, depending on the time of year. To have water warm enough
to take a hot shower or bath, or use your dishwasher or washing machine, you need
a water heater.
Water heaters are familiar fixtures in most homes. They typically look like big metal
cylinders, tall drums that are often consigned to a laundry room or basement.
Newer styles have some interesting features, like losing the tank completely in favor
of water-on-demand, but the old, reliable water heater design that's most widely
used in the U.S. today is really a pretty simple appliance; it's basically a drum filled
with water and equipped with a heating mechanism on the bottom or inside. Even
though they lack drama and complexity, water heaters are still pretty amazing.
What makes them interesting is that they exploit the heat rising principle to deliver
hot water right to your faucet with a minimum of fuss. Don't let the simple shape
shrouded in its wooly insulating blanket fool you. Water heaters have an ingenious
design on the inside for something that looks so ordinary on the outside.
In the next pages, we'll get into a little hot water and take a closer look at what's
really going on in that big steel can of a water heater in your basement.
Inside a Water Heater
Let's take a quick look at the components that work together in your water heater to
make your morning shower so satisfying:

Tank - The inner shell of a water heater is a heavy metal tank containing a
water protective liner that holds 40 to 60 gallons (151 to 227 liters) of hot
water at around 50 to 100 pounds per square inch (PSI), within the pressure
range of a typical residential water system. The exterior of the tank is
covered in an insulating material like polyurethane foam. Over that, there's a
decorative outer shell and possibly an additional insulating blanket

Dip tube - Water enters the water heater through the dip tube at the top of
the tank and travels to the tank bottom where it's then heated.

Shut-off valve -The shut-off valve stops water flow into the water heater. It's
a separate component from the heater located outside and above the unit.

Heat-out pipe -Suspended toward the top of the tank's interior, the heat-out
pipe allows the hot water to exit the water heater.

Thermostat - This is a thermometer- and temperature-control device. Some

electric water heaters have a separate thermostat for each element.

Heating mechanism - Electric water heaters have heating elements inside

the tank to heat the water. Gas water heaters use a burner and chimney
system instead.

58

Drain valve - Located near the bottom of the exterior housing, the drain
valve makes it easy to empty the tank to replace the elements, remove
sediment or move the tank to another location.

Pressure relief valve - This safety device keeps the pressure inside the
water heater within safe limits.

Sacrificial anode rod - Made of magnesium or aluminum with a steel core,

the sacrificial anode rod is suspended in the water heater tank to help retard
corrosion.

Now, let's see how all these parts work together to provide you with hot water.
Heating the Water
Let's take a close-up look at what's going on inside a water heater's tank to see how
simply and elegantly it does its job.
A water heater's thermostat controls the temperature of the water inside the tank.
Normally, you can set the temperature anywhere between 120 and 180 degrees
Fahrenheit (49 to 82 degrees Celsius). The water temperature setting recommended
by most manufacturers is between 120 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (49 to 60 degrees
Celsius). This is hot enough to be efficient for household use, but not so hot that it
can pose a scalding risk. If there are children living in your home, it's wise to stay
closer to the lower end of the range.
Setting your water heater to a lower temperature saves energy, too, and if you
remember to dial back the heat when you go on vacation, you'll experience even
more energy savings. Usually, the thermostat is located underneath a protective
cover plate and has a knob or dial you can turn to set the temperature.
The dip tube feeds cold water from your home's water lines to the bottom of the
tank's interior, where the water starts to warm up. The heating mechanism, either
a burner or an element, stays on until the water reaches temperature. As the water
heats, it rises to the top of the tank. The heat-out pipe is located near the top of
the tank. Water exiting the water heater at the top is always the hottest in the tank
at any given moment because it's the nature of hot water to rise above denser, cold
water.
The secret to a water heater's design for separating cold, incoming water from hot,
outgoing water is that it relies on the principle that heat rises to do the hard part.
The position of the heat-out pipe at the top of the tank does the rest.
How Icemakers Work

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A standard home icemaker that you install in your freezer

Only a century ago, ice was hard to come by in most parts of the world. In
hotter climates, you had to buy your ice from a delivery service, which imported
hefty blocks from a colder climate or from an industrial refrigeration plant. The price
of ice was relatively steep, but if you wanted to keep your food cold, you didn't have
much choice. In the hottest parts of the world, ice was a rare luxury. In an equatorial
country, you might live your whole life and never even see a piece of ice.
This all changed in the early 20th century. Compact, affordable refrigerators brought
the means of food preservation and ice production into the home and corner store.
In the 1960s, new automatic icemaker machines made life even easier. These days,
most Americans take ice completely for granted, even during the hottest days of
summer.
In this article, we'll find out what's inside a typical home icemaker, as well as the
larger commercial icemakers you might find at a hotel or grocery store. As we'll see,
the basic process of making ice is very simple -- you just freeze water -- but spitting
out perfectly shaped ice cubes is a fairly elaborate process.
The home icemaker's predecessor was the plastic ice tray. It's fairly obvious how
this device works: You pour water into a mold, leave it in the freezer until it turns to
a solid and then extract the ice cubes. An icemaker does exactly the same thing,
but the process of pouring water and extracting cubes is fully automated. A home
icemaker is an ice-cube assembly line.

60

The home icemaker is a miniature ice-cube assembly line.

Most icemakers use an electric motor, an electrically operated water valve and an
electrical heating unit. To provide power to all these elements, you have to hook the
icemaker up to the electrical circuit powering your refrigerator. You also have to
hook the icemaker up to the plumbing line in your house, to provide fresh water for
the ice cubes. The power line and the water-intake tube both run through a hole in
the back of the freezer.
Making Ice
When everything is hooked up, the icemaker begins its cycle. The cycle is usually
controlled by a simple electrical circuit and a series of switches. In the diagram
below, you can see how the icemaker moves through its cycle.

At the beginning of the cycle, a timed switch in the circuit briefly sends
current to a solenoid water valve. In most designs, the water valve is
actually positioned behind the refrigerator, but it is connected to the central
circuit via electrical wires. When the circuit sends current down these wires,
the charge moves a solenoid (a type of electromagnet), which opens the
valve.

The valve is only open for about seven seconds; it lets in just enough water to
fill the ice mold. The ice mold is a plastic well, with several connected
cavities. Typically, these cavities have a curved, half-circle shape. Each of the
cavity walls has a small notch in it so each ice cube will be attached to the
cube next to it.

Once the mold is filled, the machine waits for the water in the mold to freeze.
The cooling unit in the refrigerator does the actual work of freezing the
water, not the icemaker itself. The icemaker has a built-in thermostat, which

61
monitors the temperature level of the water in the molds. When the
temperature dips to a particular level -- say, 9 degrees Fahrenheit (-13
degrees Celsius) -- the thermostat closes a switch in the electrical circuit
Closing this switch lets electrical current flow through a heating
coil underneath the icemaker. As the coil heats up, it warms the bottom of
the ice mold, loosening the ice cubes from the mold surface.

The electrical circuit then activates the icemaker's motor. The motor spins
a gear, which rotates another gear attached to a long plastic shaft. The shaft
has a series of ejector blades extending out from it. As the blades revolve,
they scoop the ice cubes up and out of the mold, pushing them to the front of
the icemaker. Since the cubes are connected to one another, they move as a
single unit.

At the front of the icemaker, there are plastic notches in the housing that
match up with the ejector blades. The blades pass through these notches,
and the cubes are pushed out to a collection bin underneath the icemaker.

The revolving shaft has a notched plastic cam at its base. Just before the
cubes are pushed out of the icemaker, the cam catches hold of the shut-off
arm, lifting it up. After the cubes are ejected, the arm falls down again. When
the arm reaches its lowest resting position, it throws a switch in the circuit,
which activates the water valve to begin another cycle. If the arm can't reach
its lowest position, because there are stacked-up ice cubes in the way, the
cycle is interrupted. This keeps the icemaker from filling your entire freezer
with ice; it will only make more cubes when there is room in the collection
bin.

This system is effective for making ice at home, but it doesn't produce enough ice
for commercial purposes, such as restaurants and self-service hotel ice machines. In
the next section, we'll look at a larger, more powerful icemaker design.
Commercial Icemakers
There are any numbers of ways to configure a large, free-standing icemaker -- all
you need is a refrigeration system, a water supply and some way of collecting the
ice that forms.
One of the simplest professional systems uses a large metal ice-cube tray,
positioned vertically. You can see how this system works in the diagram below.
In this system, the metal ice tray is connected to a set of coiled heat-exchanging
pipes like the ones on the back of your refrigerator. If you've read How
Refrigerators Work, then you know how these pipes work. A compressor drives a
stream of refrigerant fluid in a continuous cycle of condensation and expansion.
Basically, the compressor forces refrigerant through a narrow tube (called

62
the condenser) to condense it, and then releases it into a wider tube (called
the evaporator), where it can expand.
Compressing the refrigerant raises its pressure, which increases its temperature. As
the refrigerant passes through the narrow condenser coils, it loses heat to the
cooler air outside, and it condenses into a liquid. When the compressed fluid
passes through the expansion valve, it evaporates -- it expands to become a gas.
This evaporation process draws in heat energy from the metal pipes and the air
around the refrigerant. This cools the pipes and the attached metal ice tray.
The icemaker has a water pump, which draws water from a collection sump and
pours it over the chilled ice tray. As the water flows over the tray, it gradually
freezes, building up ice cubes in the well of the tray. When you freeze water layer by
layer this way, it forms clear ice. When you freeze it all at once, as in the home
icemaker, you get cloudy ice.
After a set amount of time, the icemaker triggers a solenoid valve connected to
the heat-exchanging coils. Switching this valve changes the path of the refrigerant.
The compressor stops forcing the heated gas from the compressor into the narrow
condenser; instead, it forces the gas into a wide bypass tube. The hot gas is cycled
back to the evaporator without condensing. When you force this hot gas through the
evaporator pipes, the pipes and the ice tray heat up rapidly, which loosens the ice
cubes.
Typically, the individual cube cavities are slanted so the loosened ice will slide out
on their own, into a collection bin below. Some systems have a cylinder
piston that gives the tray a little shove, knocking the cubes loose.
This sort of system is popular in restaurants and hotels because it makes ice cubes
with a standard shape and size. Other businesses, such as grocery stores and
scientific research firms, need smaller ice flakes for packing perishable items. We'll
look at flake icemakers next.
Flake Icemakers
In the last section, we looked at a standard cube icemaker design. Flake icemakers
work on the same basic principle as cube icemakers, but they have an additional
component: the ice crusher. You can see how a typical flake system works in the
diagram below.
Like the cube icemaker design we examined in the last section, this machine uses a
set of heat-exchanging coils and a stream of water to build up a layer of ice. But in
this system, the coils are positioned inside a large metal cylinder. Water passes
through the cylinder, as well as around its outer edges. The passing water gradually
builds up a large column of ice surrounding the cylinder from the inside and outside.

63
As with a cube icemaker, a solenoid valve releases hot gas into the cooling pipes
after a set length of time. This loosens the ice column so it falls into the ice crusher
below. The ice crusher breaks the ice cylinder into small pieces, which pass on to a
collection bin.
The size of the ice bits depends on the crusher mechanism. Some crushers grind
the ice into fine flakes, while other crushers produce larger, irregularly shaped ice
chunks.
There are many variations on these designs, but the basic idea in all of them is the
same. A refrigeration system builds up a layer of ice, and a harvesting system
ejects the ice into a collection bin. At the most basic level, this is all there is to any
icemaker.
How Freezers Work

Freezers have long been used to preserve food, but how does it work to
keep your food from spoiling?
Nearly every modern American home has a freezer, most likely attached to a
refrigerator. But why do we freeze food? To store for later the food we wouldn't be
able to get to in a couple of days if we put it in the refrigerator. So that huge pot of
beef stew goes into the freezer, alongside that revolutionary 20th century invention:
the frozen dinner.
But the need to store food for later -- or to create ice for keeping drinks cooled -- is
far older than leftovers and TV dinners. It goes back about as far as civilization itself.
Thousands of years ago, ancient Mesopotamians discovered that cold food rotted
more slowly than food left outside [source: Shepherd]. So, they dug big pits into the
ground, insulated them with straw or sand, and then topped them with ice and snow
from the nearest mountains. These pits, or ice caves, were used to preserve the
food for two or three weeks at a time. Mesopotamians understood that warm air

64
from outside could prevent the snow from cooling the food, so the entrance was
kept small and narrow to prevent air seepage.
This was how food was preserved for centuries until about the late 1600s, when
England and France created their own version with the invention of the ice house
[source: Martin]. Although many were at least partially in the ground, some were
designed as thatched roof pits that could keep food cold or provide chipped ice for
drinks and desserts -- with the help of snow and ice brought in from lakes -- for
about a year. The process was similar to the ice cave, with an insulator such as
sawdust or small branches that was topped with snow and sawdust.
These eventually gave way to the creation of the icebox, a small cabinet that had a
compartment for holding a large block of ice and another compartment for storing
food. These were common until about the 1920s, when electric refrigerators and
freezers began to make their debut.
By then, science and industry had established the idea of mechanical refrigeration,
in which a circulating chemical gas kept things in a compartment cold. That's why
today's mechanically circulated vapor-driven freezers are a little more complicated
(and efficient) than hollowed-out ice caves filled up with mountain snow. Up next,
we'll find out how several scientific discoveries led up to the creation of the modern
freezer we use today.
Development of the Modern Freezer
Bacteria are usually the cause of food decay, but they can't grow as well or at all in
freezing temperatures, which are at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) or
lower. So, food spoils more slowly if you lower the liquid inside it -the water molecules -- to freezing temperatures.
As scientists in the early 1800s made related discoveries about the nature of
temperature and the laws of thermodynamics, it was then that the framework for
artificial temperature regulation fell into place.
American inventor Jacob Perkins built upon the vapor absorption ideas set forth by
inventor Oliver Evans in the early 1800s to create a cooling unit that relied
on vapor compression, which we'll take a closer look at on the next page. Perkins
determined that a substance used as a refrigerant would absorb and give off heat
as it went through pressure changes and transformed from liquid to vapor and back.
In other words, Perkins discovered that certain chemicals could lower air
temperatures by absorbing all the heat. He obtained the first known patent for a
refrigerating unit, but his invention never saw commercial success.
In the late 1840s, a doctor from Florida patented a device that pressurized and then
depressurized refrigerant enough to create ice, although it leaked and didn't always
work properly. And n 1860, French inventor Ferdinand Carre improved on vapor

65
compression technology by using a more stable and effective (but toxic) refrigerant
-- ammonia -- instead of the ether Perkins had used [source: Chapel].
By the 1920s, the technology had been refined enough -- and electricity widely
available enough -- that crude but expensive freezers were commercially available
in the U.S. and Europe, although they were still widely inefficient. Outside air would
seep into the freezer compartment, so they had to be stored in ice houses for better
temperature control.
Freezers have improved considerably since then, with more elaborate machinery,
better chemicals and more efficient ways of keeping the cold air inside. Read the
next page to learn more about how the freezer in your house works.

Modern Freezers
So now you know that vapor compression is the principle behind the freezer. But
how exactly does it work? At the core is a fast-moving stream of vaporized
refrigerant that goes through a cycle inside the freezer.
To get an idea of how it works, picture a river as it winds through the mountains and
countryside en route to the ocean. Once it empties out, then it's taken up by clouds,
turned into rain, and re-enters that river where it flows to the ocean again.
Refrigerant flows and transforms from liquid to gas and back in a similar way.
Today, some of the most commonly used refrigerants are HFCs (hydro
fluorocarbons). Other refrigerants, such as CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and HCFCs
(hydro chlorofluorocarbons) are highly regulated -- and banned from use in many

66
products -- in the United States since they were contribute to depleting the
atmospheric ozone layer [source: EPA].
The refrigerant begins the cooling process as a vapor under low pressure. The first
freezer component it enters is the compressor (usually found in the lower back of
the freezer). The compressor squeezes the vapor's particles, which heats it up and
converts it into a high-pressure state.
The hot, pressurized refrigerant is pumped by the compressor through a tube into
the next component called a condenser. If you've ever touched the outside of your
freezer and felt warmth, that's the heat coming off the condenser coils, which
usually sit underneath or at the bottom of the freezer, where they can be exposed
to room temperature air and cooled down. As the vapor travels through the
condenser coils, it loses the heat but retains its high pressure. It is also converted
into a moderately warm temperature.
The now-liquid refrigerant's inherent pressure pushes it through into the next
component: the metering tube. This small structure regulates the vapor's pressure
so it can head into the next component.
As the liquid refrigerant heads from the small metering tube into the
larger evaporator, its pressure drops suddenly, causing it to convert back into a
low-pressure vapor. The evaporator also absorbs the heat, which leads to a freezing
cold vapor that keeps the unit's temperature cold enough for freezing your food.
The vapor then goes back to the compressor to begin the process anew.
Types of Freezers
In your home, you probably have a refrigerator/freezer combination unit. Whether
you have a side-by-side fridge/freezer appliance, the kind with the freezer on top, or
one with the freezer on the bottom, the differences are few. Each freezer is a single
unit, so they all use the same machinery described earlier in the pursuit of vapor
compression. About the only difference is energy efficiency. The bottom-mount uses
the least amount of power. Why? If the compressor is on the bottom, doesn't have
to push vapor very far. On the side-by-side or top-freezer styles, the compressor has
to force refrigerant through a tube to reach the freezer compartment.
Another kind of freezer is the standalone, also called a "deep freeze" or "sub-zero,"
although the latter is a trademarked name for a specific brand of freezer. They, too,
operate on the basic principles of vapor-compression.
Have you ever worked in a restaurant and had to retrieve food from a large, walk-in
commercial freezer? Again, these use vapor-compression; the only major benefit for
this kind of unit is that many of them have reinforced aluminum floors which can
hold up to 600 pounds (about 270 kilograms) of weight per square foot -- a very

67
valuable concept in a high-volume restaurant (but which would be completely
unnecessary for a family of four).
Whatever kind of freezer you use, be sure to keep the temperature low and
consistent. Otherwise, you'll get a buildup of a freezer's worst enemy: frost. On the
next page, we'll take a look at how frost occurs and what you can do to prevent it.
The Frosty Menace: Freezer Frost
The worst thing that can happen to a freezer is frost, which is a thick, cold dusting
of fine ice that covers everything inside the freezer turning it all into one big solid
icy mess. What can cause frost?

Opening it too often and allowing too much warm room temperature air in,
which can shut down the freezer elements that are built to process only cold
air

Blocking air flow by pushing the freezer too close to a wall, which makes the
condenser coils act less efficiently

Having a loose rubber seal around the door, which allows that pesky room
temperature air in

Basically, in each of these situations, warm air mixes with sub-freezing air. The
result is frost. Many newer-model freezers have an automatic frost prevention
feature, which regulates temperatures to keep the inside temperature consistently
where it needs to be. If you don't have that feature, here are some other ways to
prevent frost:

Set your freezer's thermostat to 0 degrees Fahrenheit -- not too much colder
or warmer [source: NCHFP].

Open it only when you need to, so as to not wear down the rubber seal
around the door.

If your freezer has coils on the back, make sure you have at least 3 inches
between the coils and the wall.

If you aren't able to get rid of frost as fast as it accumulates -- say your rubber seal
is shot, an expensive internal part is overworked, or a coil is fried -- it might be time
to get a replacement. Up next, we'll look at what you need to consider when it's
time to purchase a new freezer.
How Home Thermostats Work

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A programmable thermostat is but one option for your heating and cooling
needs.
If you have specific heating and cooling needs in order to be comfortable then
you've probably spent a little time looking at and operating your home thermostat.
This handy little device controls the heating and air-conditioningsystems in your
house -- the two pieces of equipment that use the most energy, and the ones that
have the biggest impact on your comfort and quality of life. In these days of rising
energy prices, you might be interested to see how your thermostat works. Believe it
or not, it's surprisingly simple and contains some pretty cool technology.
In this article, we'll take apart a household thermostat and learn how it works. We'll
also learn a little about digital thermostats, talking thermostats, telephone
thermostats and system zoning.
Modern thermostats are almost exclusively digital, but before we get to those, let's
take a trip down memory lane and look at the parts of a non-digital thermostat that
you might still find in older homes and motels. Let's start with the mercury
switch -- a glass vial with a small amount of actual mercury inside.Mercury is a
liquid metal -- it conducts electricity and flows like water. Inside the glass vial are
three wires. One wire goes all the way across the bottom of the vial, so the mercury
is always in contact with it. One wire ends on the left side of the vial, so when the
vial tilts to the left, the mercury contacts it -- making contact between this wire and
the one on the bottom of the vial. The third wire ends on the right side of the vial, so
when the vial tilts to the right, the mercury makes contact between this wire and
the bottom wire.
There are two thermometers in this kind of thermostat. The one in the cover
displays the temperature. The other, in the top layer of the thermostat, controls the

69
heating and cooling systems. These thermometers are nothing more than coiled
bimetallic strips. And what's that, you ask? We'll find out on the next page.
Thermometers and Switches
A bimetallic strip is a piece of metal made by laminating two different types of
metal together. The metals that make up the strip expand and contract when
they're heated or cooled. Each type of metal has its own particular rate of
expansion, and the two metals that make up the strip are chosen so that the rates
of expansion and contraction are different. When this coiled strip is heated, the
metal on the inside of the coil expands more and the strip tends to unwind.
The center of the coil is connected to the temperature-adjustment lever, and the
mercury switch is mounted to the end of the coil so that when the coil winds or
unwinds, it tips the mercury switch one way or the other.
In non-digital thermostats there are two switches. These switches move small
metal balls that make contact between different traces on the circuit card inside
the thermostat. One of the switches controls themode (heat or cool), while the
other switch controls the circulation fan. On the next page, we'll see how these
parts work together to make the thermostat work.

Thermostat wiring consists of wires that connect the transformer to the

system relays.
Inner Workings
When you move the lever on the thermostat to turn up the heat, this rotates
the thermometer coil and mercury switch, tipping them to the left.

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As soon as the switch tips to the left, current flows through the mercury in the
mercury switch. This current energizes a relay that starts the heater and circulation
fan in your home. As the room gradually heats up, the thermometer coil gradually
unwinds until it tips the mercury switch back to the right, breaking the circuit and
turning off the heat.
When the mercury switch tips to the right, a relay starts the air conditioner. As the
room cools, the thermometer coil winds up until the mercury switch tips back to the
left.
Thermostats have another cool device called a heat anticipator. The heat
anticipator shuts off the heater before the air inside the thermostat actually reaches
the set temperature. Sometimes, parts of a house will reach the set temperature
before the part of the house containing the thermostat does. In this case, the
anticipator shuts the heater off a little early to give the heat time to reach the
thermostat.
The loop of wire above is a kind of resistor. When the heater is running, the current
that controls the heater travels from the mercury switch, through the yellow wire to
the resistive loop. It travels around the loop until it gets to the wiper, and from
there it travels through the hub of the anticipator ring and down to the circuit board
on the bottom layer of the thermostat. The farther the wiper is positioned (moving
clockwise) from the yellow wire, the more of the resistive wire the current has to
pass through. Like any resistor, this one generates heat when current passes
through it. The farther around the loop the wiper is placed, the more heat is
generated by the resistor. This heat warms the thermometer coil, causing it to
unwind and tip the mercury switch to the right so that the heater shuts off.
Next, we'll take a more detailed look at the electrical circuits in the thermostat.
Wired
This thermostat is designed for a system with five wires -- the wire terminations are
marked as follows:

RH - This wire comes from the 24VAC transformer on the heating system.

RC - This wire comes from the 24VAC transformer on the air-conditioning

system.

W - This wire comes from the relay that turns on the heating system.

Y - This wire comes from the relay that turns on the cooling system.

G - This wire comes from the relay that turns on the fan.

71
The two transformers provide the power the thermostat uses to switch on the
various relays. The relays in turn switch on the power to the fan and the air
conditioner or furnace. Let's see how this power flows through the thermostat when
the air conditioner is running.
Power from the air-conditioning transformer comes into the terminal labeled RC. The
ball controlled by the mode switch jumps the current onto a trace that leads to the
terminal in the lower-right corner of the circuit board.
This terminal connects to the top layer of the thermostat through a screw. It
connects to the pink wire, which leads to the bottom wire in the mercury switch. If
the switch is tilted to the right (as it would be if the air conditioning were on), the
current travels through the mercury into the blue wire.
Through a screw, the blue wire (see above) connects to a lug in the lower-left corner
of the circuit card.
From there, it goes through a trace on the circuit card to the other branch of the
mode switch. The ball in the mode switch jumps the current onto a trace that
connects to the terminal marked G, which energizes the fan, and the terminal
marked Y, which energizes the air conditioning.
Digital thermostats use a simple device called a thermistor to measure
temperature. This is a resistor which allows electrical resistance changes with
temperature. The microcontroller in a digital thermostat can measure the resistance
and convert that number to an actual temperature reading.
A digital thermostat can do a few things that a regular mechanical thermostat
cannot. One of the most useful features of a digital thermostat is programmable
settings. In the winter, you can program it to automatically turn up the heat for an
hour or two in the morning while you get ready for work, turn down the heat until
you get home, turn up the heat in the evening and then turn down the heat while
you sleep. This is a great money-saving feature because you can simply turn down
the heat when it isn't needed.
System Zoning
A lot of times, there are rooms in your house that are always warmer or colder than
others are. There can be many explanations for this. For one, heat rises, so rooms
on second or third floors are often too warm. In turn, basement rooms are typically
too cold. Rooms with vaulted ceilings have a difficult time retaining heat, while
rooms that receive long hours of sunlight are often difficult to cool down. These are
just a few reasons, but regardless of why a room's temperature is uncomfortable,
there's only one surefire way to even out your house's temperature: system zoning.
System zoning is pretty simple. It involves multiple thermostats that are wired to a
control panel, which operates dampers within the ductwork of your forced-air

72
system. The thermostats constantly read the temperature of their specific zone,
then open or close the dampers within the ductwork according to the thermostat's
settings. Not only is system zoning helpful for houses with inconsistent room
temperatures, but it's also great for heating or cooling individual bedrooms based
on the desired temperature setting. If you have a usually empty guest room, just
shut the door and close the damper.
If used properly, system zoning can help you save money on your energy bills.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, system zoning can save homeowners
up to 30 percent on a typical heating and cooling bill. Those savings can add up to
quite a sum -- the Department of Energy also estimates that heating and cooling
account for 40 percent of the average household's utility costs. Because guest
rooms and other seldom-used rooms don't require constant heating or cooling,
system zoning allows you to save money by running temperature-controlled air to
those rooms only when it is necessary.
Many homeowners are hesitant or unwilling to make the transition to programmable
thermostats and system zoning because of the initial cost of installation. This is an
understandable concern for anyone who's not building a new home or replacing an
old HVAC system, but there are other options available. Even though installing a
typical zoned system is not a do-it-yourself project, the Department of Energy's
Inventions and Innovation Program funded the development of a damper system
that can be retrofitted to existing ductwork. The system combines RetroZone's flex
damper air control inserts with an electronic controller and air pumping system.
There are no heavy motors involved, so existing ductwork does not need to be
altered or supported.
The flex dampers, which come in circular and square duct models, fill with air to
constrict or block the airflow within the duct. They're resistant to heat, aging,
moisture, airborne chemicals and ozone, and even if they're punctured, which is
unlikely, most holes will not affect the performance. Flex dampers should be
installed in steel or flexible ducts. The dampers can be serviced easily by gaining
access through a register. Flex dampers also work with most brands of zone-control
panels.
If you're planning to install a retrofitted zone-control system, here's what you'll need
to put on your shopping list:

thermostat for each zone

solenoid pump

solenoid panel

zone control panel

73

plenum tubing

transformer

fire rated tape

control limit switch

flex dampers

The number of zones your home needs will affect the way you set up the system. In
a two-zone system, with the zones being fairly equal in size, each zone's ductwork
must be capable of handling up to 70 percent of the total CFM (cubic feet per
minute) of air produced by your HVAC system. In a three-zone system, the zones
need to be as close in total area as possible. In this case, each zone's ductwork
should be able to handle up to 50 percent of the total CFM. Installing a four-zone
system requires a bit more work. The ducts need to be enlarged by one inch, and
they require a static pressure relief damper and high- and low-limit protection. To
avoid major damage, be sure not to completely cut off the airflow over the heat
exchanger or coil of your HVAC system.
Talking Thermostats
Talking thermostats may seem like one of those unnecessary futuristic inventions
straight out of an episode of "The Jetsons," but they're actually quite practical for
senior citizens, people who are visually impaired or blind, and other people with
special needs. Talking thermostats announce the time, day, temperature setting and
room temperature, plus they have audio instructions for setup.
Even though talking thermostats are most helpful to people with vision
impairments, they can also be useful to the general population.
It's often difficult to know when there's a problem in your heating and cooling
system, and major problems can cost thousands of dollars to repair. Even minor
problem can lead to far more serious and costly repairs if not diagnosed in a timely
manner. Talking thermostats can end up saving you lots of time, money and stress
because they alert you when you need to have your system serviced. They also let
you know when you need to change the system filter. Promptly replacing the filter
lowers the cost of heating and cooling your home and also helps people
control allergies and asthma.
Some talking thermostats even recognize and respond to voice commands. You
simply say an activation word, such as "thermostat," followed by a command like
"raise" or "lower," and the rest is automated. Talking thermostats are able to do this
because they use DSP, or digital signal processors, to process audio and speech.
First, the DSP filters out real-world analog signals. Then, the microprocessor
changes them into digital signals. After the signals have been converted, they're

74
sent through application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICS, and the
thermostat reacts in real time.
Because talking thermostats are high-end, cutting-edge accessories to heating and
cooling systems, they come equipped with all of the user-friendly functions that
other quality thermostats boast. A built-in time-delay function keeps your system
from immediately starting or stopping if it's accidentally adjusted. Stopping and
starting HVAC systems puts a lot of wear and tear on the compressor, which is the
most expensive part of the system, so the delay function is quite important. Talking
thermostats are also programmable, which allows you to heat or cool your home
only when it's necessary.
Telephone Thermostats
You're pretty fortunate if you're able to own a vacation home, but it also means
you'll be paying to heat and cool two houses. Programmable home thermostats can
actually allow you to keep the heat or air turned off until the day you arrive, but it
requires precise planning of your comings and goings in order to get the desired
result. Telephone thermostats, on the other hand, allow you to heat or cool your
home with a simple phone call.
Telephone thermostats replace your existing home thermostats. They connect to
both the heating and cooling system and to your phone line. You simply have to call
your property and enter a password on a touch-tone phone to access the controls.
Then, you can adjust not only the temperature setting but the entire system mode
as well.
Telephone thermostats can handle these functions because they use
digital microprocessors as well as a touch-tone detector and telephone interface
module. Essentially, you can "talk" to your home thermostat via telephone thanks to
the internal telephone access module. A separate phone line isn't necessary, and
the telephone thermostat can even coexist with answering machines or voice mail.
However, if you have aDSL high-speed Internet connection, you will need a DSL
filter on the telephone line that connects to your talking thermostat.
With the advent of the smart phone and their handy applications, or apps, you can
bypass the land line altogether to control your home's temperature. Wi-fi
based smart thermostats are available now and allow users to control their
home's thermostat with the help of a touch-screen smart phone. There are quite a
few apps already available, and like most smart phone apps, they aren't very
expensive, with a range of free to a few dollars.
As technological advancements make their way to simple devices like thermostats,
consumers benefit greatly from the combination of features.
How Camcorders Work

75

In most of the world, camcorders, or video camera-recorders, have been a

familiar sight for nearly 20 years. People take them everywhere: to school plays,
sports events, family reunions and even births! When you go to a popular tourist
spot, you are surrounded by them. Camcorders have really taken hold in the United
States, Japan and many other countries around the world because they are an
extremely useful piece of technology that you can own for under $300 (or more
than $100,000).
How can such a small device do so much? Particularly for anyone born before the
1980s, it's simply amazing that quality video cameras are now readily available as
consumer items, and that they're so easy to use. In this article, we'll look inside
these extremely popular devices to find out what exactly is going on. We'll explore
traditional analog camcorders and also look at the technology used in digital
camcorders.

76
Camcorder with the outer shell removed
The Basics
A typical analog camcorder contains two basic parts:

A camera section, consisting of a CCD, lens and motors to handle the zoom,
focus and aperture

A VCR section, in which a typical TV VCR is shrunk down to fit in a much

smaller space.

The camera component's function is to receive visual information and interpret it as

an electronic video signal. The VCR component is exactly like the VCR connected to
your television: It receives an electronic video signal and records it on video tape as
magnetic patterns (see How VCRs Work for details).
These two sections are easily seen in the following photos.

The camcorder's VCR unit

77

The camcorder's camera unit

The camera lens system

78

The camcorder's Charge Coupled Device (CCD)

The infrared autofocus mechanism

79

The motors that focus the camera lenses

A third component, theviewfinder, receives the video image as well, so you can
see what you're shooting. Viewfinders are actually small, black-and-white or color
televisions, but many modern camcorders also have larger full-color LCD screens.
There are many formats for analog camcorders, and many extra features, but this is
the basic design of most all of them. The main variable is what kind of storage tape
they use.
Digital camcorders have all these same elements, but have an added component
that takes the analog information the camera gathers and translates it tobytes of
data. Instead of storing the video signal as a continuous track of magnetic patterns,
it records the picture and sound as 1s and 0s. Digital camcorders are so popular
because you can copy 1s and 0s very easily without losing any of the information
you've recorded. Analog information, on the other hand, "fades" with each copy -the copying process doesn't reproduce the original signal exactly. Video information
in digital form can also be loaded ontocomputers, where you can edit it, copy it, email it andmanipulate it.
In the next section, we'll look at the heart of the camcorder, the semiconductor
device that converts visual information into an electronic signal.

80

CCD
What is the difference between CCD and CMOS image sensors in a digital
camera?

Digital cameras have become extremely common as the prices have come down.
One of the drivers behind the falling prices has been the introduction of CMOS
image sensors. CMOS sensors are much less expensive to manufacture than CCD
sensors.
Both CCD (charge-coupled device) and CMOS (complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor) image sensors start at the same point -- they have to convert light
into electrons. If you have read the article How, you understand one technology that
is used to perform the conversion. One simplified way to think about the sensor
used in a digital camera (or camcorder) is to think of it as having a 2-D array of
thousands or millions of tiny solar cells, each of which transforms the light from one

81
small portion of the image into electrons. Both CCD and CMOS devices perform this
task using a variety of technologies.
The next step is to read the value (accumulated charge) of each cell in the image. In
a CCD device, the charge is actually transported across the chip and read at one
corner of the array. An analog-to-digital converter turns each pixel's value into a
digital value. In most CMOS devices, there are several transistors at each pixel that
amplify and move the charge using more traditional wires. The CMOS approach is
more flexible because each pixel can be read individually.
CCDs use a special manufacturing process to create the ability to transport charge
across the chip without distortion. This process leads to very high-quality sensors in
terms of fidelity and light sensitivity. CMOS chips, on the other hand, use traditional
manufacturing processes to create the chip -- the same processes used to make
most microprocessors. Because of the manufacturing differences, there have been
some noticeable differences between CCD and CMOS sensors.

CCD sensors, as mentioned above, create high-quality, low-noise images.

CMOS sensors, traditionally, are more susceptible to noise.

Because each pixel on a CMOS sensor has several transistors located next to
it, the light sensitivity of a CMOS chip tends to be lower. Many of the photons
hitting the chip hit the transistors instead of the photodiode.

CMOS traditionally consumes little power. Implementing a sensor in CMOS

yields a low-power sensor.

CCDs use a process that consumes lots of power. CCDs consume as much as
100 times more power than an equivalent CMOS sensor.

CMOS chips can be fabricated on just about any standard silicon production
line, so they tend to be extremely inexpensive compared to CCD sensors.

CCD sensors have been mass produced for a longer period of time, so they
are more mature. They tend to have higher quality and more pixels.

Based on these differences, you can see that CCDs tend to be used in cameras that
focus on high-quality images with lots of pixels and excellent light sensitivity. CMOS
sensors traditionally have lower quality, lower resolution and lower sensitivity. CMOS
sensors are just now improving to the point where they reach near parity with CCD
devices in some applications. CMOS cameras are usually less expensive and have
great battery life.
The CCD
Like a film camera, a camcorder "sees" the world through lenses. In a film camera,
the lenses serve to focus the light from a scene onto film treated with chemicals

82
that have a controlled reaction to light. In this way, camera film records the scene in
front of it: It picks up greater amounts of light from brighter parts of the scene, and
lower amounts of light from darker parts of the scene. The lens in a camcorder also
serves to focus light, but instead of focusing it onto film, it shines the light onto a
small semiconductor image sensor. This sensor, a charge-coupled device (CCD),
measures light with a half-inch (about 1 cm) panel of 300,000 to 500,000 tiny lightsensitive diodes calledphotosites.
Each photo site measures the amount of light (photons) that hits a particular point,
and translates this information into electrons (electrical charges): A brighter image
is represented by a higher electrical charge, and a darker image is represented by a
lower electrical charge. Just as an artist sketches a scene by contrasting dark areas
with light areas, a CCD creates a video picture by recording light intensity. During
playback, this information directs the intensity of a television's electron beam as it
passes over the screen.
Photons hitting a photosite and creating electrons
Of course, measuring light intensity only gives us a black-and-white image. To
create a color image, a camcorder has to detect not only the total light levels, but
also the levels of each color of light. Since you can produce the full spectrum of
colors by combining the three colors red, green and blue, a camcorder actually only
needs to measure the levels of these three colors to be able to reproduce a full-color
picture.
How the three colors mix to form many colors
In some high-end camcorders, a beam splitter separates a signal into three
different versions of the same image -- one showing the level of red light, one
showing the level of green light and one showing the level of blue light. Each of
these images is captured by its own chip -- the chips operate as described above,
but each measures the intensity of only one color of light. The camera then overlays
these three images and the intensities of the different primary colors blend to
produce a full-color image. A camcorder that uses this method is often referred to as
a three-chip camcorder.

83

How the original (left) image is split in a beam splitter

This simple method produces a rich, high-resolution picture. CCDs are expensive
and eat lots of power, however, so using three of them adds considerably to the
manufacturing costs of a camcorder. Most camcorders get by with only one CCD by
fitting permanent color filters to individual photo sites. A certain percentage of
photo sites measures only levels of red light, another percentage measures only
green light and the rest of the photo sites measure only blue light. The color
designations are spread out in a sort of grid (the Bayer filter below is a common
configuration), so that the video camera computer can get a sense of the color
levels in all parts of the screen. This method requires the computer
to interpolate the true color of light arriving at each photosite by analyzing the
information received by the other photo sites in the vicinity. For a full explanation of
this process, check out How Digital Cameras Work: Capturing Color.

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If you've read How Digital Cameras Work, then all this has probably been familiar to
you -- camcorders and digital still cameras both take pictures using CCDs. But since
camcorders produce moving images, their CCDs have some additional pieces you
won't find in digital camera CCDs. To create a video signal, a camcorder CCD must
take many pictures every second, which the camera then combines to give the
impression of movement.
If you've read How Television Works, you know that a television "paints" images in
horizontal lines across a screen, starting at the top and working downward. TVs
actually paint every other line in one pass (this is called a "field") and then paint the
alternate lines in the next pass. To create a video signal, a camcorder captures a
frame of video from the CCD and records it as the two fields. The CCD actually has
another sensor layer behind the image sensor. For every field of video, the CCD
transfers all the photo site charges to this second layer, which then transmits the
electric charges at each photo site, one by one. In an analog camcorder, this signal
goes to the VCR, which records the electric charges (along with color information) as
a magnetic pattern on videotape. While the second layer is transmitting the video
signal, the first layer has refreshed itself and is capturing another image.
A digital camcorder works in basically the same way, except that at this last stage
an analog-to-digital converter samples the analog signal and turns the
information into bytes of data (1s and 0s). The camcorder records these bytes on a
storage medium, which could be, among other things, a tape, a hard disk or a DVD.
Most of the digital camcorders on the market today actually use tapes (because
they are less expensive), so they have a VCR component much like an analog
camcorder's VCR. Instead of recording analog magnetic patterns, however, the tape
head records binary code. Interlaced digital camcorders record each frame as two
fields, just as analog camcorders do. Progressive digital camcorders record video

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as an entire still frame, which they then break up into two fields when you output
the video as an analog signal. (To learn more about analog-to-digital picture
conversion, check out How Digital Cameras Work: Digitizing Information and How
Analog and Digital Recording Works.)

The Lens
As mentioned previously, the first step in recording a video image is to focus light
onto the CCD, using a lens.
To get a camera to record a clear picture of an object in front of it, you need to be
able to adjust the focus of the lens -- that is, move the lens so it aims the light
beams coming from that object precisely on the CCD. So, just like film cameras,
camcorders let you move your lens in and out to focus light. Of course, most people
need to move around with their camcorders, shooting many different things at
different distances, and constantly refocusing is extremely difficult.
This is why all camcorders come with an autofocus device, usually an infrared
beam that bounces off objects in the center of the frame and comes back to a
sensor on the camcorder.

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Infrared autofocus mechanism

To find the distance to the object, the processor calculates how long it takes the
beam to bounce and return, multiplies this time by the speed of light, and divides
the product by two (because it traveled the distance twice -- to the object and back
again). The camcorder has a small motor that moves the lens, focusing it on objects
at this distance. This works pretty well most of the time, but sometimes you have to
override it -- you may want to focus on something in the side of the frame, for
example, but the autofocus is picking up what's right in front of the camcorder. To
learn more about autofocus mechanisms, check out How Autofocus Cameras Work.

Camcorders are also equipped with a zoom lens. In any sort of camera, you can
magnify a scene by increasing the focal length of the lens (the distance between
the lens and the film or CCD). An optical zoom lens is a single lens unit that lets
you change this focal length, so you can move from one magnification to a closer
magnification. A zoom range tells you the maximum and minimum magnification.
To make the zoom function easier to use, most camcorders have an attached motor
that adjusts the zoom lens in response to a simple toggle control on the grip. One
advantage of this is that you can operate the zoom easily, without using your free
hand. The other advantage is that the motor adjusts the lens at a steady speed,

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making zooms more fluid. The disadvantage of using the grip control is that the
motor drains battery power.
Some camcorders also have something called a digital zoom. This doesn't involve
the camera's lenses at all; it simply zooms in on part of the total picture captured by
the CCD, magnifying the pixels. Digital zooms stabilize magnified pictures a little
better than optical zooms, but you sacrifice resolution quality because you end up
using only a portion of the available photo sites on the CCD. The loss of resolution
makes the image fuzzy.
One of the great things about a camcorder is that it can adjust automatically for
different levels of light. It's very obvious to the CCD when an image is over- or
under-exposed because there isn't much variation in the charges collected on each
photo site. The camcorder monitors the photo site charges and adjusts the
camera's iris to let more or less light through the lenses. The camcorder computer
always works to maintain a good contrast between dark and light, so that images
don't appear too dark or too washed out.
Formats
Analog Formats
Analog camcorders record video and audio signals as an analog track on video tape.
This means that every time you make a copy of a tape, it loses some image and
audio quality. Analog formats lack a number of the impressive features you'll find in
digital camcorders. The main difference between the available analog formats is
what kind of video tape the camcorder uses and the resolution. Analog formats
include:

Standard VHS: Standard VHS cameras use the same type of video tapes as
a regular VCR. One obvious advantage of this is that after you've recorded
something, you can pop the tape out and play it on most VCRs. Because of
their widespread use, VHS tapes are a lot less expensive than the tapes used
in other formats; they also give you a longer recording time. The chief
disadvantage of standard VHS format is that the size of the tapes
necessitates a larger, more cumbersome camcorder design. They have a
resolution of about 230 to 250 horizontal lines, which is the low end of what's
now available.

VHS-C: VHS-C camcorders record on standard VHS tape that is housed in a

more compact cassette. You can play VHS-C cassettes in a standard VCR, but
you need an adaptor device that runs the tape through a full-size cassette.
Basically, though, VHS-C format offers the same compatibility as standard
VHS format. The smaller tape size allows for more compact designs, making
VHS-C camcorders more portable. But the reduced tape size also means VHSC tapes have a shorter running time than standard VHS cameras. In short

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play mode, the tapes can hold 30 to 45 minutes of video. They can hold 60 to
90 minutes of material if you record in extended play mode, but this
sacrifices image and sound quality considerably.

Super VHS: Super VHS camcorders are about the same size as standard VHS
cameras, because they use the same size tapes. The only difference between
the two formats is that super VHS tape records an image with 380 to 400
horizontal lines, a much higher resolution image than standard VHS tape. You
cannot play super VHS tapes on a standard VCR, but, as with all formats, the
camcorder itself is a VCR and can be hooked up directly to your television or
to your VCR to dub standard VHS copies.

Super VHS-C: Basically, super VHS-C is to super VHS as VHS-C is to standard

VHS: It's just a more compact version that uses a smaller size cassette.

8mm: These camcorders use small 8mm tapes (about the size of an audio
cassette). The chief advantage of this format is that manufacturers can
produce more compact camcorders, sometimes small enough to fit in a coat
pocket. The format offers about the same resolution as standard VHS, with
slightly better sound quality. Like standard VHS tapes, 8mm tapes hold about
two hours of footage, but they are more expensive. To watch 8mm tapes on
your television, you have to attach your camcorder and use it as a VCR. Photo
courtesy Sony Sony Hi-8 Handy cam

Hi-8: Hi-8 camcorders are very similar to 8mm camcorders, but there are
several important differences. For one, Hi-8 camcorders have a much higher
resolution -- about 400 lines. Also, Hi-8 tapes are more expensive than
ordinary 8mm tapes.

Digital Formats
Digital camcorders differ from analog camcorders in a few very important ways.
They record information digitally, as bytes, which means the image can be
reproduced without losing any image or audio quality. Digital video can also be
downloaded to a computer, where you can edit it or post it on the Web. Another
distinction is that digital video has a much better resolution than analog video,
typically 500 lines. There are two consumer digital formats in widespread use:

Mini DV: Photo courtesy Newstream.com Canon Mini DV Camcorder Mini

DV camcorders record on compact cassettes, which are fairly expensive and
hold about 60 to 90 minutes of footage. The video has an impressive 500
lines of resolution, however, and can be easily transferred to a personal
computer. DV camcorders can be extremely lightweight and compact -- many
are about the size of a paperback novel. Another interesting feature is the
ability to capture still pictures, just as a digital camera does. Sony has

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recently introduced Micro MV, a format that works the same basic way as Mini
DV but records on much smaller tapes.

Digital8: Photo courtesy Sony Sony Digital8 Handy cam Digital8

camcorders (produced by Sony exclusively) are very similar to regular DV
camcorders, but they use standard Hi-8mm tapes, which are less expensive.
These tapes hold up to 60 minutes of footage, which can be copied without
any loss in quality. Just as with DV camcorders, you can connect Digital8
camcorders to your computer to download your movies for editing or Internet
use. Digital8 cameras are generally a bit larger than DV camcorders -- about
the size of standard 8mm models.

DVD: Photo courtesy Sony Sony DVD Handy cam DVD camcorders are still
relatively rare, as compared to Mini DV models, but their numbers are
growing steadily. Instead of recording magnetic signals on tape, these
camcorders burn video information directly onto small discs. The main
advantage of this format is that each recording session is recorded as an
individual track, just like the individual song tracks on a CD. Instead of
rewinding and fast-forwarding through tape, you can jump immediately to
each section of video. Other than that, DVD camcorders are pretty close to
Mini DV models in performance. The picture is a little better on DVD models,
however, and DVDs can store more footage. Depending on the camcorder's
settings, a disc can hold 30 minutes to two hours of video. The newer DVD
camcorders support two DVD formats: DVD-R and DVD-RAM. Both are threequarters the size of DVD movie discs and are encased in plastic cartridges (at
least while in the camcorder). The advantage of DVD-R camcorder discs is
that they work in most set-top DVD players. The drawback is that you can
only record to each disc once, which means you need to buy new discs
regularly. You can record over DVD-RAM discs again and again, but you can't
play them in ordinary DVD players. Like Mini DV tapes, you have to either use
your camcorder as a player for your TV or copy your movie to another format.
Photo courtesy Sony The Sony Network Handy cam IP records onto
both Micro MV and Memory Stick.

Memory card: There are now some digital camcorders that record directly
onto solid-state memory cards, such as Flash memory cards, Memory Sticks
and SD cards.

These days, you can get a digital camcorder for $600 and pick up some tapes for
under $10. Digital video editing programs simplify the editing process to the point
where you can master it in an afternoon.
Even low-end analog camcorders have so many helpful features that anybody can
get decent footage with a little practice, and you can create quality movies with
more in-depth studying. The technology that was once the exclusive domain of

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television professionals is now available as hobby equipment. Whether you simply
want to record birthday parties and recitals or you hope to produce ambitious video
projects, the newest camcorders certainly have a lot to offer.
How Fiber Optics Work

You hear about fiber-optic cables whenever people talk about the telephone system,
the cable TV system or the Internet. Fiber-optic lines are strands of optically
pure glass as thin as a human hair that carry digital information over long
distances. They are also used in medical imaging and mechanical engineering
inspection.
In this article, we will show you how these tiny strands of glass transmit light and
the fascinating way that these strands are made.
What are Fiber Optics?
Fiber optics (optical fibers) are long, thin strands of very pure glass about the
diameter of a human hair. They are arranged in bundles called optical cables and
used to transmit light signals over long distances.
If you look closely at a single optical fiber, you will see that it has the following
parts:

Core - Thin glass center of the fiber where the light travels

Cladding - Outer optical material surrounding the core that reflects the light
back into the core

Buffer coating - Plastic coating that protects the fiber from damage and
moisture

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Hundreds or thousands of these optical fibers are arranged in bundles in optical
cables. The bundles are protected by the cable's outer covering, called a jacket.
Optical fibers come in two types:

Single-mode fibers

Multi-mode fibers

Single-mode fibers have small cores (about 3.5 x 10-4 inches or 9 microns in
diameter) and transmit infrared laser light (wavelength = 1,300 to 1,550
nanometers). Multi-mode fibers have larger cores (about 2.5 x 10-3 inches or 62.5
microns in diameter) and transmit infrared light (wavelength = 850 to 1,300 nm)
from light-emitting diodes (LEDs).
Some optical fibers can be made from plastic. These fibers have a large core (0.04
inches or 1 mm diameter) and transmit visible red light (wavelength = 650 nm)
from LEDs.

Diagram of total internal reflection in an optical fiber

How Does an Optical Fiber Transmit Light?
Suppose you want to shine a flashlight beam down a long, straight hallway. Just
point the beam straight down the hallway -- light travels in straight lines, so it is no
problem. What if the hallway has a bend in it? You could place a mirror at the bend
to reflect the light beam around the corner. What if the hallway is very winding with
multiple bends? You might line the walls with mirrors and angle the beam so that it
bounces from side-to-side all along the hallway. This is exactly what happens in an
optical fiber.
The light in a fiber-optic cable travels through the core (hallway) by constantly
bouncing from the cladding (mirror-lined walls), a principle called total internal
reflection. Because the cladding does not absorb any light from the core, the light
wave can travel great distances.

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However, some of the light signal degrades within the fiber, mostly due to
impurities in the glass. The extent that the signal degrades depends on the purity of
the glass and the wavelength of the transmitted light (for example, 850 nm = 60 to
75 percent/km; 1,300 nm = 50 to 60 percent/km; 1,550 nm is greater than 50
percent/km). Some premium optical fibers show much less signal degradation -- less
than 10 percent/km at 1,550 nm.
A Fiber-Optic Relay System
To understand how optical fibers are used in communications systems, let's look at
an example from a World War II movie or documentary where two naval ships in a
fleet need to communicate with each other while maintaining radio silence or on
stormy seas. One ship pulls up alongside the other. The captain of one ship sends a
message to a sailor on deck. The sailor translates the message into Morse code
(dots and dashes) and uses a signal light (floodlight with a venetian blind type
shutter on it) to send the message to the other ship. A sailor on the deck of the
other ship sees the Morse code message, decodes it into English and sends the
message up to the captain.
Now, imagine doing this when the ships are on either side of the ocean separated
by thousands of miles and you have a fiber-optic communication system in place
between the two ships. Fiber-optic relay systems consist of the following:

Transmitter - Produces and encodes the light signals

Optical fiber - Conducts the light signals over a distance

Optical regenerator - May be necessary to boost the light signal (for long
distances)

Optical receiver - Receives and decodes the light signals

Transmitter
The transmitter is like the sailor on the deck of the sending ship. It receives and
directs the optical device to turn the light "on" and "off" in the correct sequence,
thereby generating a light signal.
The transmitter is physically close to the optical fiber and may even have a lens to
focus the light into the fiber. Lasers have more power than LEDs, but vary more with
changes in temperature and are more expensive. The most common wavelengths of
light signals are 850 nm, 1,300 nm, and 1,550 nm (infrared, non-visible portions of
the spectrum).
Optical Regenerator

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As mentioned above, some signal loss occurs when the light is transmitted
through the fiber, especially over long distances (more than a half mile, or about 1
km) such as with undersea cables. Therefore, one or more optical regenerators is
spliced along the cable to boost the degraded light signals.
An optical regenerator consists of optical fibers with a special coating (doping). The
doped portion is "pumped" with a laser. When the degraded signal comes into the
doped coating, the energy from the laser allows the doped molecules to become
lasers themselves. The doped molecules then emit a new, stronger light signal with
the same characteristics as the incoming weak light signal. Basically, the
regenerator is a laser amplifier for the incoming signal.
Optical Receiver
The optical receiver is like the sailor on the deck of the receiving ship. It takes the
incoming digital light signals, decodes them and sends the electrical signal to the
other user's computer, TV or telephone (receiving ship's captain). The receiver uses
a photocell or photodiode to detect the light.
Advantages of Fiber Optics
Why are fiber-optic systems revolutionizing telecommunications? Compared to
conventional metal wire (copper wire), optical fibers are:
Less expensive - Several miles of optical cable can be made cheaper than
equivalent lengths of copper wire. This saves your provider (cable TV, Internet) and
you money. Thinner - Optical fibers can be drawn to smaller diameters than copper
wire. Higher carrying capacity - Because optical fibers are thinner than copper
wires, more fibers can be bundled into a given-diameter cable than copper wires.
This allows more phone lines to go over the same cable or more channels to come
through the cable into your cable TV box .Less signal degradation - The loss of
signal in optical fiber is less than in copper wire. Light signals - Unlike electrical
signals in copper wires, light signals from one fiber do not interfere with those of
other fibers in the same cable. This means clearer phone conversations or TV
reception. Low power - Because signals in optical fibers degrade less, lower-power
transmitters can be used instead of the high-voltage electrical transmitters needed
for copper wires. Again, this saves your provider and you money. Digital signals Optical fibers are ideally suited for carrying digital information, which is especially
useful in computer networks. Non-flammable - Because no electricity is passed
through optical fibers, there is no fire hazard. Lightweight - An optical cable
weighs less than a comparable copper wire cable. Fiber-optic cables take up less
space in the ground. Flexible - Because fiber optics are so flexible and can transmit
and receive light, they are used in many flexible digital cameras for the following
purposes:

Medical imaging - in bronchoscopes, endoscopes, laparoscopes

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Mechanical imaging - inspecting mechanical welds in pipes and engines

(in airplanes, rockets, space shuttles, cars)

Plumbing - to inspect sewer lines

Because of these advantages, you see fiber optics in many industries, most notably
telecommunications and computer networks. For example, if you telephone Europe
from the United States (or vice versa) and the signal is bounced off a
communications satellite, you often hear an echo on the line. But with transatlantic
fiber-optic cables, you have a direct connection with no echoes.

How Are Optical Fibers Made?

Now that we know how fiber-optic systems work and why they are useful -- how do
they make them? Optical fibers are made of extremely pure optical glass. We think
of a glass window as transparent, but the thicker the glass gets, the less transparent
it becomes due to impurities in the glass. However, the glass in an optical fiber has
far fewer impurities than window-pane glass. One company's description of the
quality of glass is as follows: If you were on top of an ocean that is miles of solid
core optical fiber glass, you could see the bottom clearly.
Making optical fibers requires the following steps:
1. Making a perform glass cylinder
2. Drawing the fibers from the perform
3. Testing the fibers
Making the Perform Blank

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The glass for the perform is made by a process called modified chemical vapor
deposition (MCVD).
In MCVD, oxygen is bubbled through solutions of silicon chloride (SiCl4), germanium
chloride (GeCl4) and/or other chemicals. The precise mixture governs the various
physical and optical properties (index of refraction, coefficient of expansion, melting
point, etc.). The gas vapors are then conducted to the inside of a synthetic
silica or quartz tube (cladding) in a special lathe. As the lathe turns, a torch is
moved up and down the outside of the tube. The extreme heat from the torch
causes two things to happen:

The silicon and germanium react with oxygen, forming silicon dioxide (SiO2)
and germanium dioxide (GeO2).

The silicon dioxide and germanium dioxide deposit on the inside of the tube
and fuse together to form glass.

The lathe turns continuously to make an even coating and consistent blank. The
purity of the glass is maintained by using corrosion-resistant plastic in the gas
delivery system (valve blocks, pipes, seals) and by precisely controlling the flow and
composition of the mixture. The process of making the pre form blank is highly
automated and takes several hours. After the pre form blank cools, it is tested for
quality control
Drawing Fibers from the Pre form Blank
Once the preform blank has been tested, it gets loaded into a fiber drawing
tower.

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Diagram of a fiber drawing tower used to draw optical glass fibers from a
perform blank
The blank gets lowered into a graphite furnace (3,452 to 3,992 degrees Fahrenheit
or 1,900 to 2,200 degrees Celsius) and the tip gets melted until a molten glob falls
down by gravity. As it drops, it cools and forms a thread.
The operator threads the strand through a series of coating cups (buffer coatings)
and ultraviolet light curing ovens onto a tractor-controlled spool. The tractor
mechanism slowly pulls the fiber from the heated perform blank and is precisely
controlled by using a laser micrometer to measure the diameter of the fiber and
feed the information back to the tractor mechanism. Fibers are pulled from the
blank at a rate of 33 to 66 ft/s (10 to 20 m/s) and the finished product is wound onto
the spool. It is not uncommon for spools to contain more than 1.4 miles (2.2 km) of
optical fiber.
Testing the Finished Optical Fiber
The finished optical fiber is tested for the following:

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Finished spool of optical fiber

Tensile strength - Must withstand 100,000 lb/in2 or more

Refractive index profile - Determine numerical aperture as well as screen

for optical defects

Fiber geometry - Core diameter, cladding dimensions and coating diameter

are uniform

Attenuation - Determine the extent that light signals of various wavelengths

degrade over distance

Information carrying capacity (bandwidth) - Number of signals that can be

carried at one time (multi-mode fibers)

Chromatic dispersion - Spread of various wavelengths of light through the

core (important for bandwidth)

Operating temperature/humidity range

Temperature dependence of attenuation

Ability to conduct light underwater - Important for undersea cables

Once the fibers have passed the quality control, they are sold to telephone
companies, cable companies and network providers. Many companies are currently
replacing their old copper-wire-based systems with new fiber-optic-based systems to
improve speed, capacity and clarity.

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Total internal reflection in an optical fiber
Physics of Total Internal Reflection
When light passes from a medium with one index of refraction (m1) to another
medium with a lower index of refraction (m2), it bends or refracts away from an
imaginary line perpendicular to the surface (normal line). As the angle of the beam
through m1 becomes greater with respect to the normal line, the refracted light
through m2 bends further away from the line.
At one particular angle (critical angle), the refracted light will not go into m2, but
instead will travel along the surface between the two media (sine [critical angle]
= n2/n1 where n1 and n2 are the indices of refraction [n1 is greater than n2]). If
the beam through m1 is greater than the critical angle, then the refracted beam will
be reflected entirely back into m1 (total internal reflection), even though m2 may be
transparent!
In physics, the critical angle is described with respect to the normal line. In fiber
optics, the critical angle is described with respect to the parallel axis running down
the middle of the fiber. Therefore, the fiber-optic critical angle = (90 degrees physics critical angle).
In an optical fiber, the light travels through the core (m1, high index of refraction)
by constantly reflecting from the cladding (m2, lower index of refraction) because
the angle of the light is always greater than the critical angle. Light reflects from the
cladding no matter what angle the fiber itself gets bent at, even if it's a full circle!
Because the cladding does not absorb any light from the core, the light wave can
travel great distances. However, some of the light signal degrades within the fiber,
mostly due to impurities in the glass. The extent that the signal degrades depends
upon the purity of the glass and the wavelength of the transmitted light (for
example, 850 nm = 60 to 75 percent/km; 1,300 nm = 50 to 60 percent/km; 1,550
nm is greater than 50 percent/km). Some premium optical fibers show much less
signal degradation -- less than 10 percent/km at 1,550 nm.

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For millions of people, television brings news, entertainment and educational

programs into their homes. Many people get their TV signal from cable
television (CATV) because cable TV provides a clearer picture and more channels.
(See How Cable TV Works for details.)
Many people who have cable TV can now get a high-speed connection to the
Internet from their cable provider. Cable modems compete with technologies
like asymmetrical digital subscriber lines(ADSL). If you have ever wondered what
the differences between DSL and cable modems are, or if you have ever wondered
how a computer network can share a cable with dozens of television channels, then
read on. In this article, we'll look at how a cable modem works and see how 100
cable television channels and any Web site out there can flow over a single coaxial
cable into your home.
How Cable Modems Work

Extra Space
You might think that a television channel would take up quite a bit of electrical
"space," orbandwidth, on a cable. In reality, each television signal is given a 6megahertz (MHz, millions of cycles per second) channel on the cable. The coaxial
cable used to carry cable television can carry hundreds of megahertz of signals --

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all the channels you could want to watch and more. In a cable TV system, signals
from the various channels are each given a 6-MHz slice of the cable's available
bandwidth and then sent down the cable to your house. In some systems, coaxial
cable is the only medium used for distributing signals. In other systems, fiber-optic
cable goes from the cable company to different neighborhoods or areas. Then the
fiber is terminated and the signals move onto coaxial cable for distribution to
individual houses.
Streams
When a cable company offers Internet access over the cable, Internet information
can use the same cables because the cable modem system puts downstream data
-- data sent from the Internet to an individual computer -- into a 6-MHz channel. On
the cable, the data looks just like a TV channel. So Internet downstream data takes
up the same amount of cable space as any single channel of
programming. Upstream data -- information sent from an individual back to the
Internet -- requires even less of the cable's bandwidth, just 2 MHz, since the
assumption is that most people download far more information than they upload.
Putting both upstream and downstream data on the cable television system requires
two types of equipment: a cable modem on the customer end and a cable
modem termination system (CMTS) at the cable provider's end. Between these
two types of equipment, all the computer networking, security and management of
Internet access over cable television is put into place.

Inside the Cable Modem

Cable modems can be either internal or external to thecomputer. In some cases, the
cable modem can be part of a set-top cable box, requiring that only
a keyboard and mouse be added for Internet access. In fact, if your cable system
has upgraded to digital cable, the new set-top box the cable company provides will
be capable of connecting to the Internet, whether or not you receive Internet access
through your CATV connection. Regardless of their outward appearance, all cable
modems contain certain key components:

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A tuner

A demodulator

A modulator

A media access control (MAC) device

A microprocessor

Inside the Cable Modem: Tuner

The tuner connects to the cable outlet, sometimes with the addition of
a splitter that separates the Internet data channel from normal CATV
programming. Since the Internet data comes through an otherwise unused cable
channel, the tuner simply receives the modulated digital signal and passes it to the
demodulator.
In some cases, the tuner will contain a diplexer, which allows the tuner to make
use of one set of frequencies (generally between 42 and 850 MHz) for downstream
traffic, and another set of frequencies (between 5 and 42 MHz) for the upstream
data. Other systems, most often those with more limited capacity for channels, will
use the cable modem tuner for downstream data and a dial-up telephone modemfor
upstream traffic. In either case, after the tuner receives a signal, it is passed to the
demodulator.

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Inside the Cable Modem: Demodulator

The most common demodulators have four functions. A quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM) demodulator takes a radio-frequency signal that has had
information encoded in it by varying both the amplitude and phase of the wave, and
turns it into a simple signal that can be processed by the analog-to-digital (A/D)
converter. The A/D converter takes the signal, which varies in voltage, and turns it
into a series of digital 1s and 0s. An error correction module then checks the
received information against a known standard, so that problems in transmission
can be found and fixed. In most cases, the network frames, or groups of data, are
in MPEG format, so an MPEG synchronizer is used to make sure the data groups stay
in line and in order.

Inside the Cable Modem: Modulator

In cable modems that use the cable system for upstream traffic, a modulator is used
to convert the digital computer network data into radio-frequency signals for
transmission. This component is sometimes called a burst modulator, because of
the irregular nature of most traffic between a user and the Internet, and consists of
three parts:

A section to insert information used for error correction on the receiving end

A QAM modulator

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A digital-to-analog (D/A) converter

Inside the Cable Modem: MAC

The MAC sits between the upstream and downstream portions of the cable
modem, and acts as the interface between the hardware and software
portions of the various network protocols. All computer network devices
have MACs, but in the case of a cable modem the tasks are more complex
than those of a normal network interface card. For this reason, in most cases,
some of the MAC functions will be assigned to a central processing unit (CPU)
-- either the CPU in the cable modem or the CPU of the user's system.

Microprocessor

The microprocessor's job depends somewhat on whether the cable modem is

designed to be part of a larger computer system or to provide Internet access
with no additional computer support. In situations calling for an attached
computer, the internal microprocessor still picks up much of the MAC function
from the dedicated MAC module. In systems where the cable modem is the
sole unit required for Internet access, the microprocessor picks up MAC slack
and much more. In either case, Motorola's PowerPC processor is one of the
common choices for system designers.

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Cable Modem Termination System

At the cable provider's head-end, the CMTS provides many of the same
functions provided by the DSLAM in a DSL system. The CMTS takes the traffic
coming in from a group of customers on a single channel and routes it to an
Internet service provider (ISP) for connection to the Internet. At the head-end,
the cable providers will have, or lease space for a third-party ISP to
have, servers for accounting and logging, Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) for assigning and administering the IP addresses of all the
cable system's users, and control servers for a protocol called Cable Labs
Certified Cable Modems -- formerly Data Over Cable Service Interface
Specifications (DOCSIS), the major standard used by U.S. cable systems in
providing Internet access to users.

The downstream information flows to all connected users, just like in

an Ethernet network -- it's up to the individual network connection to decide
whether a particular block of data is intended for it or not. On the upstream
side, information is sent from the user to the CMTS -- other users don't see
that data at all. The narrower upstream bandwidth is divided into slices of
time, measured in milliseconds, in which users can transmit one "burst" at a
time to the Internet. The division by time works well for the very short
commands, queries and addresses that form the bulk of most users' traffic
back to the Internet.

A CMTS will enable as many as 1,000 users to connect to the Internet through
a single 6-MHz channel. Since a single channel is capable of 30 to 40
megabits per second (Mbps) of total throughput, this means that users may
see far better performance than is available with standard dial-up modems.
The single channel aspect, though, can also lead to one of the issues some
users experience with cable modems.

105
Pros and Cons to Cable Modems
If you are one of the first users to connect to the Internet through a particular cable
channel, then you may have nearly the entire bandwidth of the channel available
for your use. As new users, especially heavy-access users, are connected to the
channel, you will have to share that bandwidth, and may see your performance
degrade as a result. It is possible that, in times of heavy usage with many
connected users, performance will be far below the theoretical maximums. The
good news is that this particular performance issue can be resolved by the cable
company adding a new channel and splitting the base of users.
Another benefit of the cable modem for Internet access is that, unlike ADSL, its
performance doesn't depend on distance from the central cable office. A digital
CATV system is designed to provide digital signals at a particular quality to
customer households. On the upstream side, the burst modulator in cable modems
is programmed with the distance from the head-end, and provides the proper signal
strength for accurate transmission.