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Identity HelpIs this for real? "Raw Glow in the Dark Natural Quartz Crystal"

14th Jun 2011 04:25 UTCStephanie Stephens

Found this on Etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/71508946/raw-glow-in-the-dark-natural-quartz?ref=af_new_item

A quote from the listing:

"These are Tibetan quartz crystal stones that has undergone a natural process to make it glow in the dark. We have all that's left in the world (seriously!) so grab them while we have them available."

A know there are a lot of con artists out there, and who knows, these people who are offering the stones might have even been duped by someone else into buying "all that's left in the world".

They claim to glow in the dark and mke no mention of needing a black light or anything...

14th Jun 2011 05:13 UTCJames Christopher

"treated for glow in the dark effect"

14th Jun 2011 08:17 UTCMatt Neuzil Expert

it's probably photoshopped because for one its a white background suggest the photo is taken in daylight. how do u know it glows in the dark if it appears to be taken in lighted conditions??????

second most natural minerals need to be subjective to some ultraviolet light (normallyfroma lamp source) to glow.

It looks alot like vaseline glass to me. It was made in the 1900's as glass with uranium oxide added and it glows under UV &/or black light.

I say its a large chunk of vaseline glass that was probably broken up and sand blasted slighty to appear as "rough" material. it has the colour of vaseline glass. a google search will turn up more than enough hits.

on top a glass blower/ maker should be able to produce this, break it, and blast it enought to get these effects. moreso with the proper knowledge he/she would have they could easily pass these off and command high $$$ for them

14th Jun 2011 08:46 UTCNoah Horwitz

Or quartz/glass dipped in glow-in-the-dark paint...it looks just like a surface coating from the pics. Either way, I don't know how "treated" stones can have undergone a "natural process" - seems contradictory.

14th Jun 2011 15:38 UTCMerCurios

Hi Guys!

Being the owner of the Glow in the Dark quartz stones you are discussing, I can attest that they are indeed real. I purchased them from a very reliable Gem & Mineral guy who has been in the circuit for years.

I found them at a gem and mineral show last year & honestly walked right by them. It was my 5yr old son & husband who said check these out. I purchased 2 - turned them into rings and with in 48 hours they were gone. I contacted the guy and bought all he had on hand - about 300 stones! You can read about that here if you like: http://mercurios-jewels.blogspot.com/2010/09/seeing-is-believing.html

Now, from what I understand the quartz are porous, so they absorbed whatever phosphate was used to treat them to cause them to glow. The phosphate is an organic compound and non-toxic. You DO NOT need a back light. The light from the sun or even indoor light charges them so when the lights go out they glow - for real! My studio glows at night - seriously!

It is really hard to get a clear picture of the stones glowing so that's why some the glowing pictures. You don't have to believe me, just take a look at all the positive feedback I've received on the stones and finished jewelry.

Our policy page was obviously overlooked, otherwise everyone would know that we offer a refund on everything except custom jewelry purchases.

Thanks for traffic!!

xo,

Mary-Jo

MerCurios

www.mercurios.net

Stephanie Stephens Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Found this on Etsy:

> http://www.etsy.com/listing/71508946/raw-glow-in-t

> he-dark-natural-quartz?ref=af_new_item

>

> A quote from the listing:

>

> "These are Tibetan quartz crystal stones that has

> undergone a natural process to make it glow in the

> dark. We have all that's left in the world

> (seriously!) so grab them while we have them

> available."

>

> A know there are a lot of con artists out there,

> and who knows, these people who are offering the

> stones might have even been duped by someone else

> into buying "all that's left in the world".

>

> They claim to glow in the dark and mke no mention

> of needing a black light or anything...

14th Jun 2011 16:10 UTCSteve Hardinger 🌟 Expert

An organic phosphate non-toxic? Now that's funny. Many organic phosphate are, in fact, quite toxic. Example: Roundup, the popular herbicide is an organic phosphate. Kills weeds dead.

14th Jun 2011 20:15 UTCRock Currier Expert

MerCurios,

I believe the stones are bogus. Send one to the GIA for identification and show us the report if you dare. Then you can prove the experts wrong.

14th Jun 2011 21:05 UTCDonald Slater

The funny thing about this is that Mercurios goes on about how these are totally natural but then tells how they have been treated with "non toxic" organic phosphate compound that was most likely concocted in a laboratory to make them glow in the dark.

Quote from listing "Grade: natural finish stone, treated for glow in the dark effect, raw, natural, organic stone

Okay the quartz is natural but but not organic and the final product ceases to be totally natural when it is treated by a man made process to give it a property that it does not posses in nature. How can you say they are totally natural if they have been treated later with a man made chemical. I put this in the category of people that put "rare" in front of everything to make it sell better.

14th Jun 2011 21:40 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Well, he said they are treated, Rock. So what is there for the GIA to check? They'll just tell us it's quartz coated with a thin layer phosphor, which the seller has already admitted.

14th Jun 2011 22:06 UTCEvan Johnson

Just to inject a little biology (without comment to the phosphorescent coating):

There are PLENTY of organic phosphates that are not only not especially toxic, but required for life, like ATP, DNA, and RNA.

There are the organophosphate acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, but the phosphate isn't an absolute requirement, as carbamates can have the same mechanism of action without it.

Then there's glyphosate, Roundup, has to do with shikimate metabolism in plants. Not toxic to humans because we don't do much with shikimate.

Anyway, just a thought to go easy on the ridicule without looking into the details.

Again, my comments are outside of whether this coating was natural or (clearly) not.

EMJ

14th Jun 2011 22:55 UTCAmir C. Akhavan Expert

To me it translates to this:

Some low grade quartz has been treated with a dye that apparently shows phosphorescence (hence a phosphor, not phosphate or elemental phosphorous).

That dye is supposedly an organic compound, that is, it is a carbon compound, like fluoresceine (which shows fluorescence, not phosphorescence, unfortunately).

I don't know if there is any cheap, non-toxic organic compound that shows long-lasting phosphorescence, the only ones I found in the web are anorganic compounds.

So if one finds a way to take that dye and get it into the crystals, he'd get a glowing crystal. That is an art, though, because a well grown quartz crystal has a rather cramped atom lattice. You can try to get ions into them in a high voltage electric field at temperatures around 300-500C, the reverse process is used to purify artificially grown crystals for technical use - ions slowly diffuse out of the quartz lattice. Strontium might work on Aluminum doted quartz (and all natural quartz contains traces of Al), because SrAl₂O₄ shows strong phosphorescence. Sr might just barely fit into the narrow channels in the quartz structure.

This all sounds like $7 will not be enough compensation for the hassle, so my guess is that the dye simply diffuses into the zillions of cracks in a low grade crystal.

14th Jun 2011 23:43 UTCAnonymous User

hi,i know on ebay a japanese who's offered this kind of glow in the dark quartz but he honestly said than they was dyed by man and not dig out like that.he bought them from a chinese dealers at tokyo minerals show .he send me a link where i can find informations about how they are made .i will search my ebay message to find this link .it's sure than his man dyed natural quartz or glass with a contain of uranium vaseline .i buy in the past a skull carved in uranium vaseline glass that's seem to be something know since many years.the tibetan quartz seem to be usually found .i buy a lot of 1000 2-3 inches long quartz point for 0.01 cents + 50$ shipping on ebay.they dont know what invent to sell them.i been scam last week by buying a dt smoky citrine quartz point from sichuan .it's was for real a ouro verde quartz .a man irradiated by gamma ray quartz point with a yellow-green and black colors.asia it's the best place to be scam.bye

15th Jun 2011 00:13 UTCMark Gottlieb

Definitely not "natural". Here is a link to an MSDS for some glow in the dark powder. Perhaps this type of powder is mixed with a binder and applied to some quartz fragments.

Can anyone give a quick explanation of how the rare earths cause this effect?

http://glowinc.com/glow-in-the-dark/MSDS/PDUG_msds.aspx

15th Jun 2011 07:47 UTCAdam Kelly

Mercurios,

Say hi to Momo for me, I'm sure this is treated as said, but they do some unique jewelery.

Hope to enjoy some drinks next time he is in Breckenridge.

Adam K

15th Jun 2011 09:09 UTCEvan Johnson

Mark,

Fluorescence and phosphorescence are closely related (and tenebrescence, as well). At their heart, they involve using (high-energy) electromagnetism to give electrons extra energy. The electrons then spontaneously lose that energy in a very well defined manner characteristic of what element, what lattice, etc. This loss of energy is quantised, that is to say, in packets, and (generally- I can think of one exception but it's not very important) of lower-energy than the incident energy. Usually we are most interested in UV in, visible light out. In fluorescence, this happen almost instantaneously. In phosphorescence, however, a so-called "forbidden" energy state has to be passed. Misleadingly, it is not impossible, just statistically unlikely (and, therefore, takes more time). Certain elements in certain lattices are more likely to exhibit this fact (and also their neightbors- just think about phosphorescent vs. "just" fluorescent willemite from NJ).

Hope that's what you were looking for, I tried to simplify it for any audience, if you would like more details, I'd be happy to provide them (although I am sure there are far more qualified members of the MinDat community)- wikipedia also give a reasonable and nontechnical explanation of the phenomenon.

15th Jun 2011 15:06 UTCMark Gottlieb

Thanks Evan.

15th Jun 2011 17:52 UTCsteven garza

Dear All;

First, it's pretty obvious those are NOT xls; they are chunks of "something". 2nd, I believe them to be pieces of that nasty "kryptonite" glass, that was sold 10 - 7 yrs ago; they were the exact same shade chartruese & were extremely fluorescent (part of the daylight coloring was from their fluorescence). 3rd. if the seller is truly mislead, they need to take notice of the comments made here & remove/change how these items are posted; they are not natural & the only way they came from tibet would be if someone shipped them there & were reshipped to you/the dealer you got them from.

Your friend, Steve

16th Jun 2011 04:01 UTCStephanie Stephens

Hey MaryJo (MerCurios)

I hope you were not upset by my post. I never wanted to insinuate that you were conning people, that's why I posted it under the identify thread and not the fakes thread. I am actually a big fan of your Etsy store. (I hope you got a lot of traffic)

I LOVE glow in the dark stuff, but I'm a paranoid health freak and the idea that they might be radioactive kind of scared me.

I am really interested in knowing the treatment process for the stones, and if you happen to know the phosphate and how it was applied that would totally rock!

*}Peace{*

16th Jun 2011 19:24 UTCDonald Slater

I think that the main objection to the listing is calling them "natural and organic". There is no question that they are a novelty and make very interesting jewelry. I see no problem using synthetic and imitation stones as long as it is sold as such. A friend of mine just bought a carved skull that was photo luminescent and had a similar color. He paid a high price for it because he was led to believe that it was natural. Upon close examination it was discovered that it was a hard coating that could be scraped off with a knife. I am leery that the chemical that this quartz is treated with is absorbed by the quartz because as anyone that has ever looked at the dyed Brazilian agate slabs and geodes knows the quartz does not take on the dye.

16th Jun 2011 20:44 UTCJenna Mast

Concerning glowing in daylight. Some of my willemite specimens from Franklin show a more vibrant green in sunlight, which is probably activation from the UV rays.

17th Jun 2011 22:12 UTCsteven garza

Dear Jenna;

You are absolutely right; as a matter of fact, many (meta)autunites & English fluorites react to daylight UV, similarly. The "kryptonite" beads & glass did the same. What most people don't realize, is, minerals/objects that fluoresce under a UV (either wavelength) are actually fluorescing, ALL the time, in unshielded sunlight! That's because of the STRONG UV in the light, but, because the "visible light" response usually

"drowns out" the UV's response; It's like in the movies, where you hear footsteps while looking into a spot/flood light, &, suddenly, when the character gets close enough to block out most of the background light, you can see the person who was making the footfalls. If you have a thick/dark enough shield of cobalt glass (Bromoseltzer bottle bottoms! sometimes 2 together), you CAN see the sun's UV effect on a specimen; as a kid, I had to use such, because my mother didn't allow me my minerals or equipment/tools until I was 14.

Your friend, Steve

17th Jun 2011 22:32 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Let me add that it's not only the UV light from the sun that causes fluorescence - visible light (whether artificial or from the sun) can cause fluorescence too. Daylight fluorescence can occur even when all ultraviolet rays are filtered out. The fluorescence (emitted light) is always of longer wavelength than the light which excited it. So invisible ultraviolet light can cause a mineral to fluoresce with visible blue light (or any other color in the visible range), and visible blue light can excite red fluorescence (as in rubies, for example), but red light can never cause blue fluorescence.

18th Jun 2011 20:00 UTCNoah Horwitz

As for the composition of the phosphor, it's probably either zinc sulfide (if so, likely doped with copper) or one of the newer, brighter phosphors such as strontium aluminate doped with europium. Both are non-radioactive and fairly nontoxic.

9th Jul 2011 01:56 UTCmandala

I saw someone selling this in huge amounts to be used in landscaping

9th Jul 2011 16:50 UTCDonald Slater

I think that would make for an amazing landscape but I wonder how well it would hold up in the weather. I would also suspect they would wonder off over time.

18th Feb 2012 03:37 UTCShannon M

I'm no scientist but that material looks like salt crystals, which are indeed from Tibet. I have a salt lamp, which is just a hollowed out chunk with a night light inside. Maybe they can absorb the pigment from, oh say non-toxic glow in the dark paint you can get at any craft store. I'm tempted to break a chunk off and try it! Anyway, it looks like quartz but tastes like salt :)

30th Jul 2013 13:20 UTCgeorgia reynolds

Hi everybody

I bought one of these in a thrift shop. It is a white carved rabbit. I think it is from China or Tibet because of the red silk attached to it for hanging.

It surprised me it is white during the day but as the evening comes in it glows getting brighter as the room gets darker I did not expect anything like it.

Have done research and seem to come up with quartz. But dealers are advertising it it being treated with a none toxic powder that the stone absorbs and ends up as a mix inside the stone. They call in Ambient.

But I myself think it is beautiful and feel it will take off, and do not really care if it is treated as long as price is right, and I am given prior knowledge.

Most of our Sapphires are treated these days. The natural stones are not as beautiful as the treated variety. I prefer natural myself.

Will try and post a photo wish me luck

Georgia

30th Jul 2013 17:04 UTCOwen Lewis

It might be worth adding, even at this late date, that 'fluorescence' has nothing to do with UV per se. Rather, it is a phenomenon where matter absorbs radiated energy and re-emits some part of it at a different wavelength. IR radiation can and does sometimes cause fluorescence. So does optical band energy, X-rays and more.

Now the trick. As the wavelength of radiation gets shorter so the photon energy at that wavelength gets higher. This means that the wavelength at which fluorescence is observed must be lower than that of the illuminating radiation. If is was higher, then energy would be being created and the useful maxim is that 'energy can neither be created or destroyed' would be out of the window. So Alfredo's right; red illumination can never cause blue fluorescence. However, visible light can and does cause invisible fluorescence in the IR band. This unwanted effect causes difficulty in raman spectrometry, the fluorescence caused by the illuminating laser sometimes blinding the spectrometer to the low level signals in the IR band that it seeks to record.

Georgia,

I think what you are seeing is not fluorescence but another and related effect called luminescence. Some materials can take in and store energy from light during the day and can be see to give it out again, sometimes for many hours after it's dark. There are two other reasonably common causes of luminescence.

- Some mixes of chemicals can give off light for some time after they are mixed and require no energy input at all to do this.

- Some materials are 'radio-active' and emit energy as they slowly change from one form of matter to another. Often, a part of this emitted energy is in the optical wavelength band, making such materials glow in the dark, even for very many years. For best part of 100 years. such compounds were used to make luminescent paints to make things show up in the dark but, these days, radioactive materials are no longer used for that purpose.

30th Jul 2013 21:58 UTCDean Allum Expert

Owen,

What you and Alfredo have stated USED TO BE true.

A Chinese chemist came up with a miracle material which allows an apparent up-conversion of photon energy.

Here is one link to a Infrared (IR) detector card which is now available.

http://www.artphotonics.de/products/fiber-optic-accessories/fluoresce-infrared-detection-card/

Since IR light is not visible, these cards are used by photonic scientists to locate IR laser beams and determine their alignment and focus.

Perhaps one of the resident chemists can explain the principle behind the material in these detectors.

Regards,

Dean Allum

31st Jul 2013 00:29 UTCOwen Lewis

Dean,

AIUI, the only way that (say) NIR could trigger Vis emission from matter would be if some of that matter (*very* little) is being converted from one elemental form into another as the 'cost' of the energy radiated. Otherwise, the output energy (fluorescence) must be of a lower energy that was the input energy (illumination) - else one would be 'getting something for nothing'. Manage that trick and perpetual motion, free heat and light etc etc all become possible.

More input.... ET wants more input!

Owen

31st Jul 2013 00:44 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Dean, I saw a demonstration once where IR light from a common TV remote control stimulated visible light emission in diamonds - an apparent violation of the law, but only "apparent", because the diamond had to be previously "charged" with SW UV.

31st Jul 2013 02:51 UTCDoug Daniels

Perhaps visible light is somehow "charging" the detector compound, and the incident IR then releases the stored energy as visible light, as with Alfredo's "charge" diamond. Those pesky rare-earth elements...

31st Jul 2013 03:26 UTCDean Allum Expert

While the "pre-charging" effect is a reasonable assumption, that is not what is going on with these new IR detectors.

While the conversion of single photon to a higher energy is a major challenge in physics, I think the phenomenon of these new IR detectors is some sort of energy storage, such that several photons of lower energy are combined to create a visible photon.

I once saw the technical explanation, but I have forgotten it, and lost the link. One detail I do remember is that it involves REE's.

31st Jul 2013 04:00 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

Energy can't be created or destroyed and I believed that red light could never act like UV. So I wanted to see if a sodalite darkened by UV would have the same Raman spectrum as one that wasn't darkened. Surprisingly there was no difference, but when I looked at where the laser had been shining on the undarkened bit, It was dark!!! So a 740 nm laser darkened sodalite, just like UV!!! The high intensity of the laser must have permitted non linear frequency doubling or tripling.

31st Jul 2013 04:40 UTCDoug Daniels

A website advertizing their own brand of these type detectors (www.thorlabs.com) indicates that their cards have to be activated by visible light before use. They may have some documents in another tab with more details; I forgot to check (DOH!). Thus, no new source of energy, no cold fusion, no ancient alien technology, no fun.

31st Jul 2013 15:33 UTCStefan Oertel

Sure it is possible to get emission on wavelengths shorter than the excitation wavelength. When you climb up a ladder you can climb up step by step, then jump down the entire height. That works with molecules, too, and is an important technique in microscopy as the low energy excitation wavelength in the IR doesn't kill your objects. Check this for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiphoton_fluorescence_microscope

It might be no problem to get the fluorophores on a card for IR checking.....

Cheers,

Stefan

31st Jul 2013 15:54 UTCEvan Johnson

It's absolutely possible, it's just not terribly efficient and requires a pretty specific set of conditions. That said, methinks this thread has wandered a bit. :)

31st Jul 2013 16:09 UTCOwen Lewis

Yes, but it's fun :-) Lively minds have been juggling with such ideas ever since Newton chased after phlogiston.

31st Jul 2013 22:32 UTCDean Allum Expert

Rob, I wonder if there is another explanation for the sodalite darkening, local heating perhaps?

Doug, if you look further down the page of your link, you will find that in addition to the pre-illumination type of IR detector card, there are two other types, one "Does Not Require Charging", and the other is a Liquid Crystal color change type.

Stephan, You are exactly right! This IR ->visible fluorescence strategy is based on a ladder effect of multiple electron excitations. Here are some links which discuss this.

http://cmsoep.physics.sjtu.edu.cn/doc/2011/PQT%20Review%202011.pdf

http://www.phy.davidson.edu/FacHome/dmb/RESolGelGlass/PDFs/Guo.upconversion.solgel.pdf

I apologize that I cannot find the paper which describes this commercially available film.

Until recently, all green lasers utilized Nd:YVO4 crystals to "Frequency double" 1064nm light and produce 532nm green light.

Evan and Owen, While this thread began with "Glow in the Dark" materials, it has been resurrected in the present so we can write about future "Glow in the Dark" materials. We can probably think of many applications for IR-to-Visible luminescent paints, such as stove-top surfaces, or even cellphones with bolometer imagers.

Ciao, Dean Allum

1st Aug 2013 00:28 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

Thanks Dean. That's an interesting point. Bob Downs saw a phase change in crocoite that occurred at over 900 C caused by the laser. At those temperatures sodalite should heat bleach to a grey white. However this material has a reputation for darkening in the dark after light bleaching, so the colour centres can be thermally activated.

1st Aug 2013 00:51 UTCDean Allum Expert

Rob,

I was suggesting that the laser perhaps heated it locally to ~200 degrees where a bandgap could be narrowed and the material could thereby react to the longer wavelength.

-Dean A.

2nd Nov 2015 07:53 UTCRedkeyMarty

The rocks seemed interesting to me so I bought one. They do not need a black lite. They soak up the light around them and they glow for a long time. I am still amazed at it. It works like any other glow in the dark product except the light last a lot longer. It has the weight and feel like a regular rock. I hope that helps you some.

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