A germicidal lamp is a special type of lamp that produces ultraviolet (UV) light. This shortwave ultraviolet radiation disrupts the base pairing of DNA which causes the formation of pyrimidine dimers "Deoxyribonuclease (pyrimidine dimer)") and leads to the inactivation of bacteria, viruses and protozoa. It can also be used to produce ozone for water disinfection.[1]​.

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Existen tres tipos diferentes disponibles en el mercado:.

Low pressure lamps

Low pressure lamps are very similar to a fluorescent lamp, with a wavelength of 253.7 nm (1182.5 THz).

The most common form of germicidal lamp looks like an ordinary fluorescent lamp, but the tube does not contain a fluorescent phosphor. Additionally, instead of being made of ordinary borosilicate glass, the tube is made of quartz glass. These two changes combine to allow the 253.7 nm ultraviolet light produced by the mercury arc "Mercury (element)") to exit the lamp unchanged (while, in common fluorescent lamps, it causes the phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light). Germicidal lamps also produce a small amount of visible light due to other bands of mercury radiation.

In the last two decades, so-called excimer lamps have been rapidly developed, which have a series of advantages over other sources of ultraviolet radiation and even vacuum ultraviolet radiation.

Medium pressure lamps

Medium pressure lamps are much more similar to HID lamps than fluorescent lamps.

These lamps radiate broadband UV-C radiation. They are widely used in industrial water treatment, because they are very intense sources of radiation. They are as efficient as low pressure lamps. Medium pressure lamps produce a very bright bluish white light.

LED technology

Recent developments in LED technology have led to the commercial availability of LED-type UV-C light sources.

UV-C LEDs use semiconductor materials to produce light in a solid-state device. The emission wavelength is tuned by the chemistry of the semiconductor material, giving selectivity to the LED emission profile across and beyond the germicidal wavelength band. Advances in the understanding and synthesis of the AlGaN material system led to significant increases in the power output, device life, and efficiency of UV-C LEDs in the early 2010s.