Light emitting chemicals and electromagnetic fields.

[Squishynoise]

I am stumped, and googled out.

I am interested in knowing whether or not anyone knows of a chemical in liquid form, that will glow or emit light when it is excited by electrons, or more specifically an electromagnetic field.

If I am generating an electromagnetic field and want to be able to use an areosol spray to illuminate that field I would pretty much have to have a liquid chemical that can transform electrical energy into photons right?

Just curious!

Thanks in advance for any answers pro or con.

 

[Astronuc]

Well, there is chemiluminescence, but that means a chemical reaction.

In non-destructive testing, one method is dye penetrant testing in which one uses a dye that is illuminated by a UV light, which is phosphorescent.

Some materials are phosphorescent after exposure to visible light - "some glow in the dark" chemicals.

See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorescence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoluminescence

http://www.rp-photonics.com/photoluminescence.html

Certainly a static magnetic field will not induce phosphorescence, but a time varying one might if the energy is sufficient.

One might search for "Magnetoluminescence" on Google - there appears to be a fair amount of sites mentioning this. But one might add other qualifiers like "theory".

Magnetoluminescence from strain induced quantum dots
http://www.lce.hut.fi/~jtulkki/publications/rev/index.html

 

[Gokul43201]

If I am generating an electromagnetic field and want to be able to use an areosol spray to illuminate that field I would pretty much have to have a liquid chemical that can transform electrical energy into photons right?

What do you mean by electromagnetic field ? That's what light is ! A photon is a quantum of an electromagnetic field.

Please clarify - what kind of field generator are you using ?

 

[Astronuc]

What do you mean by electromagnetic field ? That's what light is ! A photon is a quantum of the electromagnetic field.

Please clarify - what kind of field generator are you using ?

Gokul prompted a thought - if it's an RF field, e.g. microwave, then perhpas some thermoluminescent compound would be appropriate. Otherwise, you're pretty much stuck with visible or UV.

Some background - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoluminescence

Maybe look into this book -
HANDBOOK OF THERMOLUMINESCENCE
http://www.worldscibooks.com/physics/5167.html