How does phosphorence work? How can an object capture light and use it to glow for long periods?
In: Chemistry
Light is an electromagnetic wave that you can percieve. It can be emitted in various ways, one of them is by breaking a molecule or having a molecule release its surplus of energy.
Phosphorence is the second case: when you light a molecule, it wil absorb certain photons and get “excited”. As soon as it is excited, it tries to get back to its “calm” state which means that it will have to lose energy. To do so, it will create a new photon (which is energy) and eject it with more or less energy (that will define its wavelenght).
To expand a bit more on “excited” molecules and “calm” molecules, a molecule have a shape/position that is the most comfortable for it which is its “calm” or “low energy” position (so the atoms are at the most efficient distance from each other, and the molecule is at the most efficient distance from the others). When you bring energy to it, it might elongate or retract the bound between two atoms or it might increase or decrease the distance between two unbounded atoms, which don’t want to be that far/close, so they will come back to their “comfortable” position by releasing the energy they stored.
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