A sodium-vapor lamp is a gas-discharge lamp that uses sodium in an excited state to produce light at a characteristic wavelength near 589 nm. Two varieties of such lamps exist: low pressure and high pressure. Low-pressure sodium lamps are highly efficient electrical light sources, but their yellow light restricts applications to outdoor lighting, such as street lamps, where they are widely used. High-pressure sodium lamps emit a broader spectrum of light than the low-pressure lamps, but they still have poorer color rendering than other types of lamps. Low-pressure sodium lamps only give monochromatic yellow light and so inhibit color vision at night. Single ended self-starting lamps are insulated with a mica disc and contained in a borosilicate glass gas discharge tube (arc tube) and a metal cap. They include the sodium-vapor lamp that is the gas-discharge lamp in street lighting. Development The low-pressure sodium arc discharge lamp was first made practical around 1920 owing to the development of a type of glass that could resist the corrosive effects of sodium vapor. These operated at pressures...