Krypton vs Xenon vs Halogen

What makes one better than the other? If you have a light that has a krypton bulb, and you change the bulb with a xenon bulb, of the same voltage and mA, would there be a performance upgrade? And what about halogen? I never see anyone overdriving using halogen.

I saw a bulb at radio shack today that was halogen, $3.99 / bulb...

My understanding of this matter is not great so I'm ready to learn too.

Xenon has larger atoms/molecules then Krypton. This means that the Tungsten filament does not evaporate as easily allowing the filament to be driven harder, hotter and whiter.

Halogen is used to recycle the Tungsten that does evaporate back off the inside of the envelope and on to the filament.

High pressure Xenon/Halogen is the best as far as flashlight bulbs go right now as far as I know.

I hope that someone can help us out here and tell it right.

Thanks

Al

My understanding as from the chemistry side:

Xenon is an inert (unreactive) gas, whereas halogens (Chlorime, bromine, iodine etc) aren't nearly as unreactive... it's a compromise because of cost, butthey do the job nearly as well.

Having a filament surrounded by an inert gas would mean it's able to burn brighter without severe consequences of blowing out (reacting with oxygen?!). Most xenon lamps claim to be high pressure - I'm guess this helps too, limiting the presence of other undesireable gases.

The whiter light from xenons could also be explained in terms of quantum mechanics - but I won't go near that topic. Not sure about light output with equiv voltage and current halogen vs xenon

Al:

I hope that someone can help us out here and tell it right.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I guess no1 could have explained this better , and at least to my knowledge, you´re 100% right

Seth