Specifications: Krypton Krypton is a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, krypton occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere, is isolated by fractionally distilling liquified air, and is often used with other rare gases in fluorescent lamps. Krypton is inert for most practical purposes, but it is known to form compounds with fluorine. Krypton can also form clathrates with water when atoms of it are trapped in a lattice of the water molecules. Krypton, like the other noble gases, can be used in lighting and photography. Krypton light has a large number of spectral lines, and krypton's high light output in plasmas allows it to play an important role in many high-powered gas lasers, which pick out one of the many spectral lines to amplify. There is also a specific krypton fluoride laser. The high power and relative ease of operation of krypton discharge tubes caused (from 1960 to 1983), the official meter (metric distance) to be defined in terms of one orange-red spectral line of krypton-86.
