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Article: Luminescence in minerals
- Article from:
- Mineralogical Record
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Mineralogical Record Jan 1996. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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INTRODUCTION
Luminescence is the non-thermal emission of visible light by a substance. The emission of visible light by minerals in response to irradiation by ultraviolet light is a prime example. The principal mechanism for most types of luminescence is essentially the same, that is, the interaction of incident energy with electrons in a solid. One of the great scientific discoveries of this century is that the electron energy levels within an atom can have only discrete, specific values; that is, they are quantized. Because these energy levels have discrete values, the energy differences between levels are also quantized, and this provides the basis for explaining the mechanisms of ...