Xenon is considered a noble gas because it is not very reactive. In fact when it was discovered, it was considered to be non-reactive until more than 60 yrs. later other scientists found ways of combining other materials to xenon.
Xenon has played a very important part in lamp technology because of its capacity to emit full spectrum light. There are a number of other materials that can emit light, but none with the same spectrum range that Xenon has.
They were earlier only used in the motion picture industry because they were very expensive to make. Xenon arc lamps were huge and very fragile and also had a number of other problems with regards to the ballasts needed in order to maintain their output.
With advancements in science however, they have been miniaturized so that they are now used as automobile headlamps and flash lights for cameras. In fact, a little bit of xenon is also included in a number of other lamps in order to improve their light emitting characteristics and improve the lifespan of the lamps.
There are only two kinds of lamps that use Xenon, one is the traditional arc lamp, and the other is the newer flash lamp. The arc lamp is where a hollow tube made generally of quartz crystals is filled with xenon under high pressure, and also contains an anode and a cathode. The anode is usually sharpened while the cathode is not. When electric current is passed through the cathode, xenon actually does not conduct it and therefore does not burn, yet when the gas is ionized, it immediately conducts the electricity, and an arc of electricity is formed between the anode and cathode. The reason for sharpening the anode is to keep the temperatures low.
This arc is so brilliant that it can blind eyes, and emits light in the full spectrum. You get from infrared to ultraviolet light, and since motion pictures need this kind of light, they were the first ones to use these lamps.
Over time this design was improved upon, and miniaturized so that you get automobile headlamps that work the same way. A ballast is incorporated in order to maintain the wattage that goes to the lamp as the arc is very fragile and can collapse with minute changes in electricity.
The flash lamps is slightly different in that the gas is filled within a hollow tube, and when electricity is applied and the gas ionized, the whole tube of gas emits light. This is however just for a fraction of a second, and has therefore found use in camera flash lights.
Even with advancements in LED technology, there is nothing that comes close to Xenon lamps either in the quality of light produced or in the longevity of the lamps. As of now they are the best that you can get.
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