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The glass envelope is most commonly a thin tube, often made of fused quartz, borosilicate or Pyrex, which may be straight, or bent into a number of different shapes, including helical, " U " shape, and circular ( to surround a camera lens for shadowless photography —' ring flashes ').

In some applications the emission of ultraviolet light is undesired, whether due to production of ozone, damage to laser rods, degradation of plastics, or other detrimental effects.

In these cases a doped fused silica is used.

Doping with titanium dioxide can provide different cutoff wavelengths on the ultraviolet side, but the material suffers from solarization ; it is often used in medical and sun-ray lamps and some non-laser lamps.

A better alternative is a cerium-doped quartz ; it does not suffer from solarization and has higher efficiency, as part of the absorbed ultraviolet is reradiated as visible via fluorescence.

Its cutoff is at about 380 nm.

Conversely, when ultraviolet is called for, a synthetic quartz is used as the envelope ; it is the most expensive of the materials, but it is not susceptible to solarization and its cutoff is at 160 nm.