FAQs | What are Xenon and HID lighting exactly? | HID Xenon Lighting News

What is Xenon and what are HID lights exactly?

For those who have never even heard of HID or Xenon before I’m referring to the super bright headlights that you see on more and more cars these days.  Sometimes blue but usually white, these lights light up the road at night like no other headlights.  But beyond that a lot of people seem to ask what exactly is xenon and HID?  What’s in mean and basically how does it work?

What is Xenon?

Xenon is a chemical element, as in it’s number 54 on the periodic table of elements.  It’s an inert gas that is stable and glows blue when an electrical current is applied.  Xenon is used is headlights, lasers, flashlights, and, weird enough, as an anesthetic.

What is HID?

HID stands for High-Intensity Discharge and is a form of light that uses an electrical arc to create the lighting source instead of a filament.  The electrical arc takes place between two electrodes inside of a tube filled with gas and metal particles called metal salts.  The gas helps the electricity jump across the gap between the electrodes and form the arc which heats up the metal salts, forming a plasma.  And it;s the plasma that helps the light get so bright without much electricity being used.