 |
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Watch manufacturing |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Barry Cohen |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | Watches |
| Parent | Mondaine |
| Website | www |
Luminox is a Swiss-made watch brand owned by Mondaine and based in San Rafael, California, United States. Luminox watches contain tritium inserts, providing long-term luminescence.
Luminox Watch Company is a U.S. company founded in 1989 and headquartered in Pfaffikon, Switzerland. Luminox also makes branded watches for various military groups with custom insignias and designs. Among these are the Heliswiss team, US Coast Guard, US Air Force, and a variety of other special forces and EMS teams worldwide.[ citation needed ]
The brand has since expanded into over 30 countries. Among the more popular watch models are those designed using visual elements of the fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin. To date, Luminox has designed watches taking cues from the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117 Nighthawk, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the F-22 Raptor. [1]
In 2006, a fifty-percent stake in the Luminox company was purchased by the Swiss brand Mondaine, giving Mondaine increased access to the American market, and Luminox increased access to the European and Asian markets. [2] In 2016, Mondaine Watch Ltd. took over the remaining half of Luminox to become sole owner. [3]
Luminox watches are advertised to possess "always visible technology." The watch hands and markers contain tritium inserts which provide long-term luminescence, as opposed to phosphorescent markers used in other watches, which must be charged by a light source.
The tritium in a gaseous tritium light source undergoes beta decay, releasing electrons which cause the phosphor layer to fluoresce. During manufacture, a length of borosilicate glass tube which has had the inside surface coated with a phosphor-containing compound is filled with the radioactive tritium. The tube is then fused with a CO2 laser at the desired length. Borosilicate glass is used for its strength and resistance to breakage. In the tube, the tritium gives off a steady stream of electrons due to beta decay. These particles excite the phosphor, causing it to emit a low, steady glow.
Luminox offers four lines of water resistant watches, labeled "Sea", "Air", "Land" and "Space". There are reported cases of counterfeit watches in circulation for the Luminox brand. The fake Luminox watches are reported to be shinier than originals and have wrong font numbers on the dial. [4]
A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a frame of video on an analog television set (TV), digital raster graphics on a computer monitor, or other phenomena like radar targets. A CRT in a TV is commonly called a picture tube. CRTs have also been used as memory devices, in which case the screen is not intended to be visible to an observer. The term cathode ray was used to describe electron beams when they were first discovered, before it was understood that what was emitted from the cathode was a beam of electrons.
Europium is a chemical element; it has symbol Eu and atomic number 63. Europium is a silvery-white metal of the lanthanide series that reacts readily with air to form a dark oxide coating. It is the most chemically reactive, least dense, and softest of the lanthanide elements. It is soft enough to be cut with a knife. Europium was isolated in 1901 and named after the continent of Europe. Europium usually assumes the oxidation state +3, like other members of the lanthanide series, but compounds having oxidation state +2 are also common. All europium compounds with oxidation state +2 are slightly reducing. Europium has no significant biological role and is relatively non-toxic compared to other heavy metals. Most applications of europium exploit the phosphorescence of europium compounds. Europium is one of the rarest of the rare-earth elements on Earth.
A beta particle, also called beta ray or beta radiation, is a high-energy, high-speed electron or positron emitted by the radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus during the process of beta decay. There are two forms of beta decay, β− decay and β+ decay, which produce electrons and positrons respectively.
Cathodoluminescence is an optical and electromagnetic phenomenon in which electrons impacting on a luminescent material such as a phosphor, cause the emission of photons which may have wavelengths in the visible spectrum. A familiar example is the generation of light by an electron beam scanning the phosphor-coated inner surface of the screen of a television that uses a cathode ray tube. Cathodoluminescence is the inverse of the photoelectric effect, in which electron emission is induced by irradiation with photons.
A phosphor is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence; it emits light when exposed to some type of radiant energy. The term is used both for fluorescent or phosphorescent substances which glow on exposure to ultraviolet or visible light, and cathodoluminescent substances which glow when struck by an electron beam in a cathode-ray tube.
Phosphorescence is a type of photoluminescence related to fluorescence. When exposed to light (radiation) of a shorter wavelength, a phosphorescent substance will glow, absorbing the light and reemitting it at a longer wavelength. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately reemit the radiation it absorbs. Instead, a phosphorescent material absorbs some of the radiation energy and reemits it for a much longer time after the radiation source is removed.
A radioactive tracer, radiotracer, or radioactive label is a synthetic derivative of a natural compound in which one or more atoms have been replaced by a radionuclide. By virtue of its radioactive decay, it can be used to explore the mechanism of chemical reactions by tracing the path that the radioisotope follows from reactants to products. Radiolabeling or radiotracing is thus the radioactive form of isotopic labeling. In biological contexts, experiments that use radioisotope tracers are sometimes called radioisotope feeding experiments.
Liquid scintillation counting is the measurement of radioactive activity of a sample material which uses the technique of mixing the active material with a liquid scintillator, and counting the resultant photon emissions. The purpose is to allow more efficient counting due to the intimate contact of the activity with the scintillator. It is generally used for alpha particle or beta particle detection.
Tritium radioluminescence is the use of gaseous tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to create visible light. Tritium emits electrons through beta decay and, when they interact with a phosphor material, light is emitted through the process of phosphorescence. The overall process of using a radioactive material to excite a phosphor and ultimately generate light is called radioluminescence. As tritium illumination requires no electrical energy, it has found wide use in applications such as emergency exit signs, illumination of wristwatches, and portable yet very reliable sources of low intensity light which won't degrade human night vision. Gun sights for night use and small lights used mostly by military personnel fall under the latter application.
Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with silica and boron trioxide as the main glass-forming constituents. Borosilicate glasses are known for having very low coefficients of thermal expansion, making them more resistant to thermal shock than any other common glass. Such glass is subjected to less thermal stress and can withstand temperature differentials without fracturing of about 165 °C (300 °F). It is commonly used for the construction of reagent bottles and flasks, as well as lighting, electronics, and cookware.
Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, or gamma rays. Radioluminescence is used as a low level light source for night illumination of instruments or signage. Radioluminescent paint is occasionally used for clock hands and instrument dials, enabling them to be read in the dark. Radioluminescence is also sometimes seen around high-power radiation sources, such as nuclear reactors and radioisotopes.
Luminous paint is paint that emits visible light through fluorescence, phosphorescence, or radioluminescence.
Phosphor thermometry is an optical method for surface temperature measurement. The method exploits luminescence emitted by phosphor material. Phosphors are fine white or pastel-colored inorganic powders which may be stimulated by any of a variety of means to luminesce, i.e. emit light. Certain characteristics of the emitted light change with temperature, including brightness, color, and afterglow duration. The latter is most commonly used for temperature measurement.
Mondaine is the trademark for a series of watches made by the Swiss company Mondaine Watch Ltd. The company was founded by Erwin Bernheim. Initially, he exported wristwatches manufactured by different Swiss watchmakers. Subsequently, he started manufacturing lever watches at Remonta AG, a subsidiary of Mondaine in Biberist, Switzerland.
An optoelectric nuclear battery is a type of nuclear battery in which nuclear energy is converted into light, which is then used to generate electrical energy. This is accomplished by letting the ionizing radiation emitted by the radioactive isotopes hit a luminescent material, which in turn emits photons that generate electricity upon striking a photovoltaic cell.
Radium dials are watch, clock and other instrument dials painted with luminous paint containing radium-226 to produce radioluminescence. Radium dials were produced throughout most of the 20th century before being replaced by safer tritium-based luminous material in the 1970s and finally by non-toxic, non-radioactive strontium aluminate–based photoluminescent material from the middle 1990s.
Radioactivity is generally used in life sciences for highly sensitive and direct measurements of biological phenomena, and for visualizing the location of biomolecules radiolabelled with a radioisotope.
Super-LumiNova is a brand name under which strontium aluminate–based non-radioactive and nontoxic photoluminescent or afterglow pigments for illuminating markings on watch dials, hands and bezels, etc. in the dark are marketed. When activated with a suitable dopant, it acts as a photoluminescent phosphor with long persistence of phosphorescence. This technology offers up to ten times higher brightness than previous zinc sulfide–based materials.
Electron-stimulated luminescence (ESL) is production of light by cathodoluminescence, i.e. by a beam of electrons made to hit a fluorescent phosphor surface. This is also the method used to produce light in a cathode ray tube (CRT). Experimental light bulbs that were made using this technology do not include magnetic or electrostatic means to deflect the electron beam.