Indiglo

Indiglo is a brand name of Indiglo Corporation, solely owned by Timex for licensing purposes. Timex electroluminescent lamps, branded "Indiglo", were introduced through Kmart in 1992 in the Ironman watch line. They were an immediate success. An earlier attempt by Timex at making backlit watches using glass electroluminescent lamps was not successful. The Indiglo lamp uniformly lights the surface of the Timex's watch dials in a manner similar to the Illuminator technology used by Casio. In some newer watches the indiglo backlight only lights up the numbers, rather than the entire LCD display, which is achieved by means of a specialized film that inverts the LCD transmissivity. The Timex Datalink USB uses this newer indiglo technology. Indiglo devices emit a distinct blue-green or white or other color, not true indigo, as the name suggests. Electroluminescent phosphors are typically green or blue-green, and most other colors are achieved through the use of cascading dyes.

The Indiglo night-light has been licensed and used in other devices, including clock radios, electronic personal organizers, and nightlights. Its trademark is capitalized "INDIGLO".

Electroluminescent lamps are also used in cell phones, pocket pagers and other hand-held products. Unique uses have been seen, such as EXIT signs, street signs, the interior of purses, etc. They are also used in automobiles in the instrument cluster, radio, gear shift indicator, and ambience lighting.

The indiglo works on the principle of directly converting electricity to light source. Photoemissive elements such as phosphorus can be used between two charged plates,so that it acts as a capacitor. This requires about 150-200v in order to produce the emission. Hence a transformer is used, which is a 1:100 transformer, which meets the required voltage when the 1.5v supply to the primary coil is given. This is made possible by using a very thin circuitry consisting of transistors which is placed inside watches.

ee also

* Electroluminescence
* Timex
* Casio
* Illuminator (backlight)

External links

*
* [http://www.howstuffworks.com/question296.htm How does an Indiglo watch work?] at HowStuffWorks
* [http://www.indiana.edu/~hightech/fpd/papers/ELDs.html Overview of electroluminescent display technology, and the discovery of electroluminescence]