Rubbing two sugar cubes or pieces of quartz or rose quartz in the dark will also work. Scratching quartz with a steel pin may also demonstrate the effect.
For the most part, triboluminescence is an interesting effect with few practical applications. However, understanding its mechanisms may help explain other types of luminescence, including bioluminescence in bacteria and earthquake lights.
Triboluminescent coatings could be used in remote sensing applications to signal mechanical failure. One reference states that research is underway to apply triboluminescent flashes to sense automobile crashes and inflate airbags.
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She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Updated January 14, Featured Video. Want to see lightning sparks inside your mouth? Go inside a room, preferably at night. Turn the lights off and wait until your eyes adjust. Put Wint-o-Green inside your mouth.
Life Savers Wint-o-Green is a hard sugar-based candy. This type of candy creates small sparks when bitten. The occurrence is called triboluminescence. This happens when stress is created in the crystals creating an electric field. These electric fields can rip the outer electrons from the molecules. When these free electrons then bump into, say, nitrogen molecules in the air, they transfer energy to the nitrogen molecules, causing them to vibrate.
These nitrogen molecules then emit ultraviolet light, which is outside of the human visual spectrum. There is also, though, some visible light created when the crystal molecules recombine with some of the free electrons, when they jump across the crystalline structure.
So then, most all hard sugar candy will emit anywhere from a very faint brief glow in the visible spectrum, to a relatively bright flash when crunched, depending on what other chemicals are also in the candy for the electrons to react with. For the somewhat less technical answer, when sugar crystals are crushed, they emit an electrical discharge that can excite molecules near the discharge, such as nitrogen in the air, which will then in turn make them give off various types of light while they are in this excited state.
So why do the Wintergreen Lifesavers seem to flash so much brighter than other hard sugar candies? It turns out, there is a fluorescent chemical flavoring, methyl salicylate oil of wintergreen , in the Wintergreen Lifesavers.
What this means is that methyl salicylate is a substance that has the ability to absorb light at shorter wavelengths and then emit light at longer wavelengths, giving off visible light. Basically, similar to how fluorescent lights and neon tubes work. So when you bight into Wintergreen Lifesavers, the electrical discharge excites the nitrogen in the air, producing mostly ultraviolet light; which then in turn is absorbed by the methyl salicylate; this then emits light in the visible spectrum, creating a visible flash.
Many artificial flavors in hard candies will induce similar effects creating a flash in the visible spectrum, not just in the ultra-violet range. Other crystals, such as diamonds or salt, will do the same thing with the structure of the crystal being the determining factor on whether or not it will emit light when broken; so basically, whether it is a triboluminescent crystal or not.
Interestingly, in many types of crystals, these sparks are powerful enough to induce combustion.
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