Talk:Thermoluminescence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Definition

I don't think nuclear energy can be released by the heating of something. One definition I have is: Thermoluminescence is a result of high energy electrons trapped within the specimen. Heat frees the electrons, which produce light much like fluorescence. Another I have is: A phenomenon in which certain minerals release previously absorbed radiation upon being moderately heated. By assuming both of these are true, I can deduce that the most possible explanation of this phenomenon is that: "a mineral is exposed to UV radiation, and its electrons are excited into a higher orbit, on which it stays until heat makes the molecules vibrate, causing the electrons to fall to a lower orbit and release the previously acquired energy as visible light." No nuclear energy. Besides, you´d have to bombard the material with neutrons to get any nuclear energy out of if (besides that it´d have to be unstable). Please correct me if I'm wrong on anything.Slartibartfast1992 00:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Uh... dont confuse me with a neanderthal, but the definition now seems hard to understand... Could anybody dumb it down for people like me who are not in high school yet? Besides, I asked somebody who knows about this field who told me it's complete and meaningless junk.Slartibartfast1992 22:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, why is this article not a stub? I've seen much larger and explanatory articles that are stubs, and if this were qualified as a stub it would get a lot more help. Slartibartfast1992 17:26, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah.. so.... what happens is that when the molecules absorb the energy (be it from UV light or heat) the electrons in the valence (outer) shell of the molecule get all excited and bounce out to one higher level. Eventually (not really that long) the electrons lose that energy and fall back into the right valence shell they should be in. As they do this the energy they lost is released as a photon of light. I am not sure where people brought in nuclear energy but that is where a single atom is split to produce 2 atoms of 1 or 2 different elements. This releases a great deal of energy and Uranium is the commonly associated element used for nuclear energy. If there's a physicist out there... please verify or correct me on this but that is my understanding of how it works. 205.56.129.195 09:03, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No, that's just fluorescence. Thermoluminescence works more or less the same way, only it holds onto the energy and only releases it when exposed to heat. How it holds onto the energy is what needs to be explained in the article, and why we need an expert on the subject. Slartibartfast1992 17:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)