Talk:Fluorescence/Archives/2013

Lifetime
In the first sections it mentions the fluorescence lifetime. It gives the wrong impression to say that the lifetime is shorter based on the rates of competing processes. I think a distinction should be made between the natural lifetime and the observed lifetime. 173.23.196.176 (talk) 03:53, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

In the lifetime section, is the lifetime specified as a time constant or as a half-life? eigenlambda (talk) 15:00, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

More?
i miss information about fluorescence used for blacklight active pictures/paint colors. Paniq
 * Ditto. There is a stub called Blacklight paint (IMHO it is too specifically titled). See the talk page there. Splarka 07:13, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

how to understand the Stoke's shift in the solid state?

Traffic Signs
What about traffic signs? Do they employ fluorescent materials? 24 August 2006


 * Not the ones I have seen. They generally use corner cubes, which reflect light directly back at the source. A normal mirror would bounce the light away from the source. Since the driver's eyes and the headlights are close together, they appear to be highly reflective. In stop signs the cubes are generally made of some sort of glass. Larger versions of the same basic concept make the plastic "cat eye" reflectors you likely have seen, the back of the disk consists of moulded half-cubes. Maury 22:06, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Definition for Quantum Yield vs. Quantum Efficiency
I'm a little confused about terminology and in browsing the web I see the world is too. Quantum efficiency and quantum yield seem to be used interchangeably in some settings.

I thought that quantum efficiency was defined as the ratio of emitted photons to successfully absorbed photons and could also be defined in terms of the radiative emission constant to the sum of rate constants for all relaxation paths.

I thought The quantum yield alternatively was the product of the probability of a photon incident on the molecule being absorbed (molar extinction coefficient) with the probability of emission given absorbtion (quantum efficiency).

An analogy for the difference might be made considering an opperation of recieving and throwing balls between to parties. Imperically, my efficiency for throwing balls could be estimated as the ratio of the number of times that I throw it back to doing something else with it (eat it, burn it, drop it, hand it to someone etc.) But if your curious about how many balls you need to throw at me to get one thrown back, you must consider how good I am at catching things that are thrown at me!

Fluorescence of quantum dots
In general, the shining of quantum dots is not fluorescence. Since it is a semiconductor, not a molecule, it does not have electronic levels. According to Jablonski diagram, fluorescence is a process that occurs from the lowest sublewel of the lowest excited electronic level. So fluorescence can not occur in semiconductors. The process, in which quantum dots emit photons, could be referred as luminescence, or photoluminescence (since it is induced by light).

A quantum dot is not really a semi-conductor, as the electron motion is restricted to a small enough space that the energy level are discrete and not continuous as they are in an ordinary semi-conductor. Because the emission comes from discrete energy levels it is referred to as fluorescence not luminescence. --Biophysik (talk) 09:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Discrete frequencies vs. Continuous Spectrum
I don't quite understand fluorescence. If the element which absorbs the UV, then emits visible light is a solid (e.g. solid paint on fluoro lights), why is the visible light emitted only certain discrete frequencies, not a continuous spectrum, like if you heat the solid??
 * black body radiation is a very different process than fluorescence, so it should not be entirely surprising that it differs in some aspects. In the case of fluorescence the light is being given off by the change in energy levels of the electrons. Incoming photons, UV in your example, bump the electrons up to an energy level above that of what it will eventually give off, say orange. The electrons then fall towards that state over a period of time, giving off energy as photons or into the material itself as heat. In either case the energy given off is too small to notice to the naked eye. This process continues until it reaches the "magical state" that gives off the visible photon, which comes out as the orange light you see. Maury (talk) 20:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between Scintillation and Fluoresence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.70.247.242 (talk) 23:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Neon color?
Neon color redirects to this page, but is not mentioned anywhere in the article. --212.202.104.196 (talk) 07:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Dayglo which I suppose is a common (brand?) name for the bright luminescent orange and yellow colors used for safety purposes, doesn't even redirect here, but to a music album. I find that peculiar. An application section, discussing the use of such colors, would be very welcome I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.54.140.59 (talk) 14:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

editor
This page could really use someone to proofread/edit it. Plenty of typos (I changed "equiptment" to "equipment") and things like capitalization of nouns (maybe the author of the sections in question is german? but in english this isn't correct), etc are scattered throughout the article. a relatively major topic like "fluorescence" really deserves to have proper grammar etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.21.41.18 (talk) 07:46, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Physical Principles
I suggest the "Equations" section be merged into the "Rules" section and called something along the lines of "Physical Principles." I'd like to add more about Stokes shift and something about anisotropy and it doesn't fit in well under the current organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mllyjn (talk • contribs) 03:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)