Painting with Ultraviolet

When glow-in-the-dark materials meet ultraviolet light, the phosphors in the material fluoresce as the electrons are excited and fall back down to lower energy levels. Because of this, any uv source can be used to "charge" the material from sunlight to flashlights tuned to ultraviolet frequencies. In this short post, I want to share some materials that work really well to "paint" using ultraviolet light. 

When I do this in my classroom, I turn off the lights and have stations set up for students to explore on their own. It is surprisingly satisfying to have glow-in-the-dark material leave such defined trails on command

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The Ultraviolet Source

UV LED Keychains (Amazon)

This is the best option if you are going to have students do the painting (highly recommended) because they are safe and cheap. As long as the keychain is held right up next to the glow in the dark material, these little keychains will paint just fine :)

Ultraviolet Flashlight (Amazon)

I love this as a powerful source of ultraviolet light. It is rechargeable and provides a really nice wide beam so it's great for making things glow but not necessarily the "detail work" of painting designs

Purple Laser (Amazon)

This is a really cool long range application. As with any laser, you must be VERY careful not to shine in anyone's eyes. If this link doesn't work, just search for "Long Range Tactical Blue Purple Laser Beam" and you should find something comparable

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The Canvas

Glow in the Dark Vinyl (Amazon)

This material is designed to make glow in the dark t-shirt decals but in this application, it works really well as a large blank canvas :) It's also fairly cheap too, coming in at about $9 for 8 sq ft at the time of posting this.

You can also use any other glow in the dark material that you find laying around. I have some glow in the dark Halloween decorations that I like because they have a large flat space to write on

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