Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.
Our geek BFF, Jeri Ellsworth, has tickled our exploratory fancies again (and continued to push the “don’t try this at home” envelope) with a chemistry hack of re-doping common ZnS:Cu green glow powder to arrive at her own blue electroluminescent (EL) powder. Nice work, Jer!
This is pretty cool, I especially enjoyed the part about what was going on the inside of the zinc-sulfate/copper lattice, and how it’s made. I’m no physicist (and need another college chemistry class, tbh), but if I’m to understand correctly, every time an electron changes valence layers it emits a photon (or at least when it changes in one of the directions)? So if you get enough of them changing layers fast enough you make a sort of light bulb?
Cool!
Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.
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Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!
This is pretty cool, I especially enjoyed the part about what was going on the inside of the zinc-sulfate/copper lattice, and how it’s made. I’m no physicist (and need another college chemistry class, tbh), but if I’m to understand correctly, every time an electron changes valence layers it emits a photon (or at least when it changes in one of the directions)? So if you get enough of them changing layers fast enough you make a sort of light bulb?
Cool!