Hello,

 

I made a fluorescence beam in a glass prism with two lasers of different wavelength. Did anybody try this before? With a 532 nm laser I saw a red beam inside and using another of 405 nm I obtained a yellow ray.

 

You can see this experiment in this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uOtIWizpZw

 

Thank you!

 

I haven't, but nice video!

Glass often has additives in it; some glass is doped to increase the index of refraction (e.g. leaded glass, aka lead crystal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass#Lead_crystal another is uranium glass) so you're probably seeing fluorescence from whatever dopant was used.

 

The fluorescence from the blue light may be due to manganese.

I haven't, but nice video!

Thanks!

Glass often has additives in it; some glass is doped to increase the index of refraction (e.g. leaded glass, aka lead crystal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass#Lead_crystal another is uranium glass) so you're probably seeing fluorescence from whatever dopant was used.

 

The fluorescence from the blue light may be due to manganese.

Thanks for the explanation!

I have this prism and I didn't know which was the reason of this fluorescence.

There are some pretty pictures on Google. Apparently uranium glass will strongly fluoresce green when you hit it with UV light.

 

How much power are the laser pointers you used?

The lasers of 532 nm and 405 nm have 30 mW and 5 mW, respectively.

The lasers of 532 nm and 405 nm have 30 mW and 5 mW, respectively.

Cool. I have to fire up my green laser pointer and see if I can see this in any glass I own. Also now want to get a blue laser, and dig out my UV flashlight.

I try this with many glass at home and I didn't observe any fluorescence... but with virgin olive oil you can observe this phenomenon, also.

 

I show this in the next photograph:

 

Good optical glass shouldn't glow under visible light.

The additives used to increase refractive index etc also shouldn't- so the effect in the OP is due to impurities which just happen to be there in the glass.