Neon is used in specialty lighting applications. Neon is a major component excimer laser mixes and mixtures used in photolithography process used in semiconductor manufacturing. It is used in glow lamps, fluorescent lamps, and plasma displays. It is especially useful in lighting systems that are used in cold areas. Neon is used as both a buffer gas and active medium in lasers. It is used in types of gas lasers including ion lasers, excimer lasers and in helium-neon lasers. Helium neon lasers are used in a variety of commercial applications including in bar code scanners. With a boiling point of -410.94°F (-246.08°C) liquid neon can be used as a cryogenic refrigerant. It has over forty times the refrigerating capacity by volume as helium. Neon also finds application in a number of research areas. It is a component in some lung diffusion mixtures, to test pulmonary function. Neon mixtures are also used to calibrate analytical instruments that measure the amount of carbon monoxide diffused through the lungs. Neon is used as a carrier gas in specialty chromatography applications. It is used as a filling gas in spark chamber particle detectors, Geiger tubes and other detectors, fluorescent lamps, sodium discharge lamps, digital display tubes, stroboscope lights, in signs in mixtures with argon, filament lamps, and telephone line surge arrestors.

Krypton is used in a wide variety of applications. These applications take advantage of krypton’s low ionization and high atomic mass. Much krypton is used for window insulation. It insulates better than argon or air when put between the panes of double or triple pane windows. Krypton provides for lower U-factors (higher R-values) with the same window design. Additionally, krypton offers additional benefits with thin spacings between panes making more high-performance designs possible. Krypton’s physical and chemical properties make it useful in lighting applications. It is used in incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, and high intensity discharge lamps. It is a component of excimer laser mixes to produce certain wavelengths. It is a required component in the gas mixes used to produce 222nm (KrCl) and 248nm (KrF) UV. Krypton is used in sputter deposition, which is a type of physical vapor deposition. It offers advantages when depositing coatings with higher molecular weights. Krypton is more expensive, than commonly used argon, but provides a higher yield and better coating is obtained when coating with heavier atoms. Krypton is often used for sputter coating heavier coatings like titanium Krypton is used as a propellant for satellites and other spacecraft. Krypton is a preferred propellant for electric propulsion. Thrusters ionize and expel the krypton using electrical or magnetic fields at up to hundreds of kilometers per second providing in-space propulsion many times more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion. At these velocities, a little propellant goes a long way. It is used for production of semiconductors in annealing, etching and lithography applications. Krypton acts both as surface disruption agent and a plasma modulator, influencing the composition of plasmas through secondary ionization. Historically secondary ionization and surface disruption was achieved using argon due to cost and availability, but krypton provides the ability to select for ions present in plasma in additional ways.

Argon is a chemical element with symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of theperiodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third most abundant noble gas in Earth's crust. Argon is produced industrially by the fractional distillation of liquid air. Argon is mostly used as an inert shielding gas in welding and other high-temperature industrial processes where ordinarily unreactive substances become reactive; for example, an argon atmosphere is used in graphite electric furnaces to prevent the graphite from burning. Argon is also used inincandescent, fluorescent lighting, and other gas discharge tubes. Argon makes a distinctiveblue-green gas laser. Argon is also used in fluorescent glow starters.

Helium is a colorless, odorless noble gas. It is shipped as a compressed gas. Helium is the smallest and lightest of the noble gases. It is so light that it can escape even escape the Earth’s atmosphere. It is produced deep underground through the radioactive decay of uranium and its daughter products. And it is captured by the same geologic formations that capture natural gas. Most helium is produced by extracting it from natural gas. Helium is used in the welding industry as an inert shielding gas for arc welding. Taking advantage of it’s very low boing point, only a few degrees above absolute zero, it is used for cryogenics cooling for very cold storage of samples and cooling of magnets in MRI machines. This can be in open-loop systems where evaporating helium is replaced, or closed loop helium refrigerators. Helium, in mixtures with neon and argon is used in electronic tubes and neon signs. It is lighter than air and nonflammable so it is good to use in blimps and balloons. Helium is used in large balloons for upper atmosphere and cosmic ray studies and in small balloons by weather forecasters to carry meteorological instruments. And, it is used in even smaller balloon to be festive. Helium is used for aerospace applications including pressure testing and leak testing propellant tanks. With the small atomic size and inertness, helium will slip through gaps other gasses will not. And it is used to pressurize rocket fuels to force them into rocket engines. Helium is used in laboratories for leak detection, in dry boxes needing an inert atmosphere, as a temperature standard, and as a carrier in gas chromatography. A mixture of helium and oxygen is used as a breathing gas for deep divers who work under high pressures. Helium is used in the production of semiconductors.

Xenon is used in a wide variety of applications. It is a component of excimer laser mixes to produce certain wavelengths. It is a required component in the gas mixes used to produce 282nm (XeBr), 308nm (XeCl), and 351nm (XeF). It is used in sputter deposition, especially when depositing coatings with higher molecular weights. Xenon is more expensive, than commonly used argon, but a higher yield and better coating is obtained when coating with heavier atoms. Xenon is often used for sputter coating heavier coatings including those used to make hard disks. Xenon has long been used as a propellant for satellites and other spacecraft. Xenon is a preferred propellant for electric propulsion whether with Hall effect thrusters or ion thrusters. The thrusters ionize and expel the xenon at up to hundreds of kilometers per second providing in-space propulsion many times more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion. Xenon electric propulsion has been used for orbit-raising and station keeping of satellites and has been used to send space probes to Mercury and the asteroid belt. Xenon’s physical and chemical properties make it useful in lighting applications. It is used in incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, and high intensity discharge lamps. It is used for production of semiconductors in annealing, etching and lithography applications. Krypton acts both as surface disruption agent and a plasma modulator, influencing the composition of plasmas through secondary ionization. Historically secondary ionization and surface disruption was achieved using argon due to cost and availability, but krypton provides the ability to select for ions present in plasma in additional ways. Xenon mixes are used in detectors including those used to detect radiation and infrared light. Xenon is even used in the very large detectors used to find dark matter. Xenon even has some medical applications, including use to enhance MRI imaging or as anesthesia.