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UltravioletPhotography

Old Glass Fluorescence


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Tonight I found some interesting stuff. Aside from glowing crab spiders, pitcher plant juices, and a tiny millipede, I tried some inorganic fluorescence.

 

Many moons ago I used to dig for old glass bottles around southern New Jersey. I have a large collection from the 1850's to early 1900's. All hand made. Cool stuff. You know, kidney, liver and bladder cure medicines and their ilk. Probably was worse for you than what you had.

So naturally I found myself wandering around inside the house and shining the Blak-Ray on everything (it's apparently what you do when you get one of these) and came to my collection--and was pleasantly surprised!

 

Some of them fluoresce like mad! It appears to mainly be the ones which have manganese oxide in there makeup and have been exposed to the Sun/UV's for many years, just laying there on the ground. Aside from the tall one, they all have some purplish tint to them in visible light, which we always called Amethyst. Not sure if that is technically correct but oh well that's what we called them.

These are straight from the camera, no mods, just converted from RAW. Gotta love them Blak-Rays.

 

Take a look--

 

 

Comment: This is an old inkwell, the kind you dipped a pen into.

Visible Light: Canon SX50 Unmodified, LED, 8 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-58159300-1415769595.jpg

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50 Unmodified, Blak-Ray B-100AP, 2.5 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-07484000-1415769650.jpg

 

 

Diptych

post-51-0-26069900-1415769925.jpg

 

 

 

Comment: I am sure this was great tea...

Visible Light: Canon SX50 Unmodified, LED, 3.2 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-40695800-1415770055.jpg

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50 Unmodified, Blak-Ray B-100AP, 2.5 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-93922200-1415770261.jpg

 

 

Diptych

post-51-0-50139800-1415771735.jpg

 

 

 

Comment: This is a weird shaped bottle and I have no clue as to it's previous contents. I don't think it is as old. But elegant nonetheless.

Visible Light: Canon SX50 Unmodified, LED, 3.2 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-63535600-1415770381.jpg

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50 Unmodified, Blak-Ray B-100AP, 10 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-79007000-1415770447.jpg

 

 

Diptych:

post-51-0-16249900-1415770541.jpg

 

 

 

Comment: And now the whole family.

Visible Light: Canon SX50 Unmodified, LED, 5 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-38910800-1415770582.jpg

 

 

UVIVFL: Canon SX50 Unmodified, Blak-Ray B-100AP, 8 s @ f/8 ISO 80, No Filters.

post-51-0-11107500-1415770614.jpg

 

 

Diptych:

post-51-0-54209200-1415770681.jpg

 

 

-D

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Nice finds indeed. Kudos. I would not be surprised if the glass type(s) contained a lot of heavy metals or suchlike ingredients.

 

The "elegant" glass of your last post appears to be a kind of hourglass, those you had dry sand in and turned upside down.

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That is Uranium glass I'll bet !!?? Must look it up. (later: no prolly not U glass)

Very cool that you found some old glass bottles and experimented with them.

 

I'm going to give the glass fluor its own thread because it is very interesting and might not be found later under the Mushroom title.

 

I think the last one might be a perfume bottle?

 

******************************

 

Found a very informative link on Ebay (surprisingly).

I'll add a brief summary in case this link ever goes away.

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Vaseline-Glass-and-Other-Glass-That-Glows-/10000000004557517/g.html

 

Vaseline Glass: UO2, visible yellow or yellow-green, fluoresces bright neon green under black light. Sometimes the fluor is visible in sunlight.

 

Uranium Glass: U?, visible green (no yellow tint), fluoresces neon-green under black light.

 

Manganese Glass: MN, visible clear or amethyst, fluoresces dilute green (fainter lime green) or orange under black light. MN was added to decolorize glass. Oxidation of MN causes the amethyst tint to old glass.

 

Depression Glass: Fe & U, visible pale green (no yellow tint), fluoresces dilute green under black light.

 

Carnival Glass: visible teal (blue-green), fluoresces green under black light.

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Uranium (uranyl) glass aka Vaseline glass, typically has a green or yellowish green colour in visible light as it is excited by blue light. It typically exhibits a strong yellowish-green to green fluorescence in LWUV.

 

Manganese doped glass typically appears yellow to golden yellow in visible light and fluoresces reddish-orange to orange to yellow in UV.

 

I would have to dig back into my notes but what you are observing may be due to irradiation traps created by long term exposure to the sun. However, the fluorescence you have captured appears quite well defined so not sure about that.

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Found what I was looking for - solar irradiation of manganese doping in glass produces traps which act as colour centers resulting in typically a purple tint. It appears these traps can result in green fluorescence to UV.
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Is an "irradiation trap" the same thing as an "F-center?"

 

I don't think the tall bottle is an hourglass, as its internal apertire is way too wide, and hourglasses are not usually equipped with stoppers. The stopper style suggests laboratory ware, though it might have been a decorative perfume flask as well.

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Well look at what I found !! Damon's hourglass bottle is very much like this Absinthe decanter. I never would have guessed that!!!

LINK: http://www.absinthe....sinthe-decanter

 

Also discovered this style was called a Pinch Decanter. Some with silver around the rim were very expensive.

LINK: https://www.1stdibs....er/id-f_887535/

 

And some modern ones from the 1950s:

LINK: https://www.etsy.com...ched?ref=market

 

Many Pinch Decanters were Victorian. Here is an auction containing many:

LINK: http://www.denhams.c...+glass+decanter

 

I always learn such interesting things from our cool UVP members' posts. ;) ;)

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Wow super cool. Thanks for finding all this stuff out. We live in an interesting age.

This must have been really worth something when it was full of Absinthe. If I was selling it I would include the UVIVFL images in the ad.

 

Shane--I like that explanation about the "irradiation trap". That is really neat. Amazing. So much more informative than what I used to say "it's from sitting in the sun". :)

It seems challenging to stump this group. There sure are some sharp people on this site!

 

Kluk Kluk Irradiation trap--that sure sounds like a title to an old Star Trek episode.

 

-D

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Is an "irradiation trap" the same thing as an "F-center?"

 

By trap I was referring to a colour center formed by UV radiation.

 

"Scratching the surface":

F center derives from Farbe, German for colour, therefore F centers are by nomenclature, colour centers.

 

Here are three examples of colour centers:

 

F centers was originally applied to alkali halide F centers such as those found in fluorite (fluorspar), a mineral form of calcium fluoride (a metal halide). A metal halide has an ionic crystal structure in which Frenkel, and associated Schottky, defects occur in the crystal lattice. The halide ion vacancy can trap electrons, which results in the formation of an F center, also referred to as an electron color center.

 

In amethyst (purple quartz, silicon dioxide) the colour center is formed by trace Fe3+ ions replacing Si4+ ions in the crystal structure. This results in a pale yellow colour. On irradiation, the Fe3+ forms [FeO4]4+ creating a hole center, which results in a purple colour. This is a hole colour center (as opposed to a electron colour center).

 

Amethyst glass (based on silicon dioxide) is amorphous, i.e. it has no crystal structure. The colour center in purple desert glass is solely the function of irradiation of the manganese dopant. Energy is absorbed from light for transferring electrons from one atom to another, resulting in the purple colour. UV radiation liberates a free electron when it changes the manganese valence state from Mn2+ (reduced state) to Mn3+ (oxidized state). The free electron is trapped by the Fe3+ ion to form Fe2+ leaving behind the Mn3+color center.

 

Summary:

By nomenclature, Farbe = colour, so F center = colour center.

By process of formation, an F center is a colour center in which a crystallographic defect, in the form of an ion vacancy, traps an electron.

Amethyst glass is caused by a UV induced colour center that involves a charge transfer between two atoms.

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UV radiation liberates a free electron when it changes the manganese valence state from Mn2+ (reduced state) to Mn3+ (oxidized state). The free electron is trapped by the Fe3+ ion to form Fe2+ leaving behind the Mn3+ color center.

 

Could you say that the UV induces a kind of 'permanently frozen' luminescence? That may be too fanciful. "-)

 

Thank you for the interesting explanation, Shane.

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Could you say that the UV induces a kind of 'permanently frozen' luminescence?

 

No luminescence involved, perhaps my original wording was a little unclear.

 

The creation of the colour center was a function of UV radiation, not the purple colour itself (that is a function of absorption in the visible spectrum).

 

UV creates the Mn3+ colour center by changing the oxidation state of the manganese.

The colour center has strong absorption bands in the visible spectrum leaving the unabsorbed light to produce its purple colour.

 

Dan Fosbury has a nice transmission spectrum for "desert purple" glass here https://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_81667/6226788474/

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