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How an Ultraviolet Blacklight Flashlight Unveils Mysteries

The ultraviolet blacklight flashlight has become an invaluable tool in revealing hidden things toresearchers and investigators, and lay tradespeople in a number of occupations. The blacklight flashlight shines ultraviolet (UV) light on substances with fluorescent properties, causing them to glow. If not entirely masked, when white light is present, these substances are otherwise invisible to the naked human eye, and in fact the fluorescent effect is greatly reduced.

Scorpion led flashlight

An ultraviolet blacklight flashlight thus unveils secrets and mysteries. A few of these secrets are intentionally hidden from plain view, including watermarks, and some occur naturally, including the spectral properties of gemstones.

Before the recent developments in light emitting diode (LED) technology, a fairly bulky apparatus could have been needed to generate the sufficiently powered black light for such applications. However the high luminous efficiency of contemporary LEDs permits strong, bright UV light in a flashlight easily located in the palm of merely one hand, rendering application implementation practical and convenient. For example, Simon Flashlights sells a UV Blacklight Flashlight that is powered by three AAA batteries and uses 14 small LEDs to concentrate the ultraviolet beam.

Let’s now examine a few of the many applications now making use of this modern device.

In this particular high-tech society which we are a part, proving the authenticity of government currency and documents has become a significant challenge. Precision counterfeiting is quite sophisticated, requiring increasingly complicated countermeasures. Embedded holographs and watermarks are examples of such countermeasures.

Tellers in clerks and banks in stores often find it employment necessity to examine for these embedded markings in the currency passed before them. They are doing so through a small UV LED flashlight, which causes the markings to fluoresce. (In cases like this, the result is bright enough not to be masked by surrounding white light.) Inside a similar manner, TSA personnel validate your passport or driver’s license.

A favorite application for the ultraviolet LED flashlight is the detection of urine along with other bodily fluids, both from humans and from animals. The black light doesn’t trigger fluorescence with any strength until the substances are deposited after the containing fluids have evaporated, even though the amino acids and salts suspended in these fluids possess fluorescent characteristics.

Cat owners use UV LED flashlights to ferret out the out-of-way corners in which their pets have urinated. The fluorescence has an amber color. Restaurant inspectors make use of the lights to examine for rat food and infestation contamination. Hotel inspectors (and picky guests) examinesheets and carpets, and mattresses for cleanliness by way of an ultraviolet flashlight.

A novel application for blacklight flashlights is scorpion hunting. The Southwest is essentially overrun through the arthropods, and lots of residents are diligent about capturing them. Being nocturnal, scorpions are quite hard to find in the daytime, and they also scamper far from ordinary white-light flashlights. But the UV flashlight causes their exoskeletons to fluoresce in a blue-green color, and this makes their capture quite simple.

Gemologists analyze jewels to determine their value. Often significant sums of money ride on the judgments, which are derived from whether or not the jewel has been heat-treated, has flaws, or is synthetic. Traditionally their work has required expensive laboratory equipment, but an LED ultraviolet flashlight has proved to be remarkably reliable for this work, particularly for preliminary analyses. The imperfections associated with every type of precious stone fluoresce in a unique way.

There are many applications we haven’t even mentioned. Naturally, the versatility in the LED ultraviolet blacklight flashlight broadens everyday.