Rare earth phosphors have been available since the early days of the neon sign industry, but because of their high cost they were not widely used in sign tubing.
However, recent developments in chemical refinement techniques have reduced the cost of rare earth materials to the point where it has become feasible to incorporate them in fluorescent
coated sign tubing. Phosphor coatings which incorporate these performance enhancing rare earth materials exhibit distinct advantages over standard phosphor coatings. These advantages
include greater lumen output per watt, better lumen maintenance over time, and narrower bandwidth emissions for purer and more vivid colors than ever before possible.
