Olive Oil Fluorescence

[Meatball]

If you take a glass of extra virgin olive oil and "pump" the solution with a 405nm laser, you will see some red fluorescence in the form of a red beam through the container.

Pumping with a 532nm beam yields an orange beam.

From what I understand, this is similar to how ordinary organic dyes will behave.

As a thought experiment, can one cause olive oil to lase when pumped with a N2 tea laser? Olive Oil laser anyone? Would it work?

Discuss.

 

[LordKaramazov]

depends...if u got meta-stable levels, or if the fluorescence just comes from normal decay without passing through a meta-level.

if its a tri level u can q-switch it, or even CW if enough pump-power (but then ud need to have it being circulated as not to burn it)

i guess, even if ud be able to do it, ur throughput isnt that good when compared to dyes, so it wouldnt really be a reality...the overall cost would exceed the one from a dye laser.

and when i use a 405 laser is just seems to be completely absorbed after a few milimeters, which can mean 1 of 2 things, everything is used to pump levels (which i doubt) or simply olive oil is mostly opaque to that wavelength (thats why its yellowish-green)

just my 2 cents

*edit* Oh! and it would be more effective to actually pump with 532 in the case of the orange...

 

[Flaminpyro]

I agree it would be much easier to use the dye instead of oil.

Heck have you tried shining your 405 through window glass ?

Some window glass will fluoresces an orange color.

Happy glowing...

depends...if u got meta-stable levels, or if the fluorescence just comes from normal decay without passing through a meta-level.

if its a tri level u can q-switch it, or even CW if enough pump-power (but then ud need to have it being circulated as not to burn it)

i guess, even if ud be able to do it, ur throughput isnt that good when compared to dyes, so it wouldnt really be a reality...the overall cost would exceed the one from a dye laser.

and when i use a 405 laser is just seems to be completely absorbed after a few milimeters, which can mean 1 of 2 things, everything is used to pump levels (which i doubt) or simply olive oil is mostly opaque to that wavelength (thats why its yellowish-green)

just my 2 cents

*edit* Oh! and it would be more effective to actually pump with 532 in the case of the orange...

 

[n2stuff]

And does Popeye know this:crackup: Sorry I cold not help myself. Cool trick tho I will have to try.

 

[sdistin]

That's really cool, I noticed some green when my 405 was diffused through the bottom of the bottle (PET). I think I'll take my lasers and some oil to work tomorrow and hook them up to our new portable UV/Vis. I'll tell you how it goes, though it's the first day of classes so I might be busy.

 

[sdistin]

I didn't have time to try it in our actual fluorimiter but I tried it in a "spectrovis plus" by Vernier which has a 405nm and 500nm excitation source. I saw only a small peak with the 500 but with the 405 I got a nice one (see attatched). That peak is right at 650nm.

 

[billg519]

Here's a vid I made of a 12x bluray with olive oil, whisky, and rum. The rum was incredibly fluorescent and I wish that I hadn't swigged half of it before shooting the clip.