Application of Luminescent Materials

Luminescent materials have changed the world. Energy saving lamps, many kinds of displays and modern medical equipment all rely on luminescent materials and it is hardly imaginable that large scale application of luminescent materials started only slightly more than 100 years ago (for an overview see e.g. Ref [5.198]). 

After this short, general introduction into the operation of a luminescent material, we now turn to a similar introduction to the applications of luminescent materials. 

The use of luminescent ions as a probe does nut belong to the field of industrial application of luminescent materials, but should be considered as an application in the field of research and characterisation of materials. The basic idea is that the luminescence properties of an ion tell us something about the ion itself and also about its surroundings in the host lattice. The dangerous side of this use of luminescence, a side which is often overlooked, is that only luminescent ions can be monitored. However, it may well be that the material contains the specific ion but that it does not or only partly luminesce under the given circumstances. It is therefore important to know whether the ion has really been excited or not, and whether all ions show emission or not. 

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