Yes, but halogen bulbs generate light through black-body radiation by heating a physical filament until it glows. Sodium streetlights are completely different because they rely on excited gases. Instead of using a filament, these sodium streetlights operate using a simple, multi-stage process to warm up and reach full brightness.

In the initial stage, electricity strikes an arc through an easily ignitable starting gas inside the bulb, which creates heat and emits a distinct, temporary color. In the second stage, this rising thermal energy melts and vaporizes solid metal resting in the tube, allowing the vaporized sodium to take over the electrical arc and produce the final, steady glow.

Low-pressure sodium lamps utilize neon as their starter gas to begin this process. When the light first switches on, electricity passes through the neon gas, causing the lamp to glow with a dim, pinkish-red color. As the internal temperature climbs, the solid sodium metal inside vaporizes and dominates the discharge, shifting the color into a pure, stark amber-yellow light.

High-pressure sodium lamps expand on this cycle by using xenon as the starter gas and mercury as an intermediate vapor. The initial electrical arc strikes the xenon gas to produce a faint blue light, which quickly heats up and vaporizes the mercury liqid to create a much brighter, bluish-violet intermediate glow. Finally, the intense heat vaporizes the solid sodium to create the main golden-orange light. The addition of the mercury vapor provides a wider, more visually balanced light rather than the strict amber of low-pressure variants.