Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/11/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 3:04 PM -0500 11/12/07, Chris Saganich wrote: >Yea, the radiation does cause stress in the glass but that isn't >what causes the color. The color is caused by electrons re-bonding >to different sights after the ionizing radiation kicks them out of >their shells. The electrons need a new home in the structure and >that changes molecular bonding. If we were talking about a stable >crystal structure then the UV trick wouldn't work, but because glass >is amorphous and liquid it is easy to restructure the molecular >bonding...just add heat at the correct temperature...the annealing >temperature. The UV can only do two things to glass either >photoionize or be absorb as heat. Photoionization is kicking an >electron out of its shell, but that's how the glass became colored >in the first place. UV B and C have enough energy to photoionize, >which is 4eV for glass. UV A or black light does not have enough >energy to photoionize so all the energy is absorbed as heat, thus >photo-annealing. So any radiation with energy less then 4eV would >work, the time and intensity would have to be longer. I suppose UV >A would be the most efficient since it has the highest energy, just >under 4 eV. >Chris > Thanks, Chris. That makes sense. -- * Henning J. Wulff /|\ Wulff Photography & Design /###\ mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com |[ ]| http://www.archiphoto.com