Sorry for the delay. Thanks for all of your posts.
I am looking to embed LEDs of just the right wavelength into a bed of Quartz, and other fluorescent minerals. First i wanted to make some sort of device that i could find the optimal fluorescing wavelength of the various minerals. I have found charts online, but they only give a broad range. See this: http://mineral.galleries.com/mineral...y/fluotabl.htm
Most minerals are divided into long and short UV wavelengths. From what I understand long and short are in two broad ranges of the UV spectrum. 400 nm - 315 nm for long, and 280 nm - 100 nm for short.
If the shortwave LEDs are going to be too much of a hassle to get, then i will just stick with the longer wavelengths.
Would the germicidal LEDs still hurt your eyes looking only at the fluoresced mineral, or do you have to be looking right at the LED source?

Anyway, I suppose I should just get some cheap long wave UV LEDs and see which minerals I can use with them.

Thanks!
Nate

 

Hi Nate,

a friend of mine living in California is a gem collector and he uses a small incandescent lamp to find out what kind of minerals he found.

Since the minerals reflect the light into many directions those partial reflections should not do harm to an eye.

However be careful not to stay too close to the mineral being "illuminated".

Hans