Geissler tube

Related to Geissler tube: Crookes tube

Geissler tube

(ˈɡaɪslə)

(General Physics) a glass or quartz vessel, usually having two bulbs containing electrodes separated by a capillary tube, for maintaining an electric discharge in a low-pressure gas as a source of visible or ultraviolet light for spectroscopy

[C19: named after Heinrich Geissler (1814–79), German mechanic]

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References in periodicals archive ?

However, the vessels were never sufficiently evacuated to make possible the study of the electric fluid itself, at least not until the Geissler tube (see 1855) was devised.

In 1858 the German physicist Julius Plucker (1801-1868) forced an electric current through a Geissler tube. He detected the fluorescence, described it, and noted that the position of the fluorescence shifted in response to an electro-magnetic field.

Electricity in a vacuum

Tubes so evacuated were called Geissler tubes, and their use was to lead in the decades that followed to remarkable advances in the study of atomic structure.