Metal Halide Lamps - All Types

A metal-halide lamp is an electric lamp that produces light by an electric arc through a gaseous mixture of vaporized mercury and metal halides(compounds of metals with bromine or iodine). It is a type of high-intensity discharge (HID) gas discharge lamp. Developed in the 1960s, they are similar to mercury vapor lamps, but contain additional metal halide compounds in the arc tube, which improve the efficacy and color rendition of the light.

Metal-halide lamps have high luminous efficacy of around 75 - 100 lumens per watt, which is about twice that of mercury vapor lights and 3 to 5 times that of incandescent lights and produce an intense white light. Lamp life is 6,000 to 15,000 hours. As one of the most efficient sources of high CRI white light, metal halides as of 2005 were the fastest growing segment of the lighting industry. They are used for wide area overhead lighting[2] of commercial, industrial, and public spaces, such as car parks, sports arenas, factories, and retail stores, as well as residential security lighting and automotive headlamps (xenon headlights).