Nernst lamp

Because the rod (unlike tungsten wire) would not further oxidize when exposed to air, there was no need to enclose it within a vacuum or noble gas environment; the burners in Nernst lamps could operate exposed to the air and were only enclosed in glass to isolate the hot incandescent emitter from its environment.

The lamps were quite successfully marketed for a time, although they eventually lost out to the more efficient tungsten-filament incandescent light bulb.

Minerals for the production of the glowers were extracted from the company's own mines at the legendary Barringer Hill, Texas (since 1937 submerged beneath the waters of Lake Buchanan).

At the 1900 World's Fair held in Paris, the pavilion of the AEG was illuminated by 800 Nernst lamps, which was said to be quite spectacular at the time.

In addition to their usage for ordinary electric illumination, Nernst lamps were used in one of the first practical long-distance photoelectric facsimile (fax) systems, designed by professor Arthur Korn in 1902, and in Allvar Gullstrand's original slit lamp (1911) which is used for ophthalmology to allow physicians to view the inside of a patient's eye and contributed to Gullstrand's Nobel Prize award.