Chemistry can be beautiful. All molecules around us is affected and reflected by a combination light to give color. This project uses a phosphorescent material to build a canvas where light is the brush and the paint. When drawing on the canvas the phosphorescent material will emit the light and shine back for up to 1 minute.
Phosphorescence isn’t present in many chemical compounds, as it needs to have some specific characteristics on the quantum level. Light hitting a chemical compound has the potential to excite an electron, meaning that the electron enters a higher energy state. The electron can then relax back to the ground state (low energy state) by emitting light. In most cases this happens so quickly that it is not observable by the human eye as it is in the order of 10 nanoseconds. This is called fluorescence. Phosphorescent light has a far longer lifetime. This is due to the excited electrons ability to undergo intersystem crossing to another state called a ‘triplet state’. From this state the electron can only return to the ground state via a forbidden quantum transition. Being forbidden does not mean that this does not happen, it just happens less often than allowed transitions. This is what allows these compounds to glow for long periods of time after being excited by a light source.
The wall was used for entertainment purposes, and was mostly shown during the opening tour of TechLab. Science how also showed the wall to people interested in more when they came to their show. The feedback from the users were very positive. However, it was problem to find a suitable location for the wall, since it required a dark environment at an outdoor festival. We opted to place it inside the container at TechLab, where the conditions for the wall were good. To receive more feedback, the wall would need to be placed somewhere at the festival with more people passing by.