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Identity HelpIs this for real? "Raw Glow in the Dark Natural Quartz Crystal"
14th Jun 2011 04:25 UTCStephanie Stephens
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
14th Jun 2011 08:17 UTCMatt Neuzil Expert
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
14th Jun 2011 15:38 UTCMerCurios
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
14th Jun 2011 20:15 UTCRock Currier Expert
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
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
14th Jun 2011 22:06 UTCEvan Johnson
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
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
15th Jun 2011 00:13 UTCMark Gottlieb
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
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
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
15th Jun 2011 17:52 UTCsteven garza
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
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
16th Jun 2011 20:44 UTCJenna Mast
17th Jun 2011 22:12 UTCsteven garza
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
18th Jun 2011 20:00 UTCNoah Horwitz
9th Jul 2011 01:56 UTCmandala
9th Jul 2011 16:50 UTCDonald Slater
18th Feb 2012 03:37 UTCShannon M
30th Jul 2013 13:20 UTCgeorgia reynolds
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
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
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
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
31st Jul 2013 02:51 UTCDoug Daniels
31st Jul 2013 03:26 UTCDean Allum Expert
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
31st Jul 2013 04:40 UTCDoug Daniels
31st Jul 2013 15:33 UTCStefan Oertel
It might be no problem to get the fluorophores on a card for IR checking.....
Cheers,
Stefan
31st Jul 2013 15:54 UTCEvan Johnson
31st Jul 2013 16:09 UTCOwen Lewis
31st Jul 2013 22:32 UTCDean Allum Expert
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
1st Aug 2013 00:51 UTCDean Allum Expert
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
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