Fluorescent grow lights are a very common light source for indoor growing. Besides being used for growing though, you see them everyday. They are all around us; in the office, your house, on streets, and in stores. The majority of people have no idea how they actually work though. In this article I will briefly talk about what makes fluorescent grow lights actually light up your growing space.
Fluorescent grow lights are some of the most complicated lighting sources in the world these days. These lamps rely mainly on inelastic scattering of electrons to produce the illumination. There is gas in the chambers of all fluorescent lights, and this gas is very important for them to work correctly. In simple terms, when the light is turned on the electrons are heated up, and then collide with the gas particles in the chamber. These gas atoms then are raised to a higher energy level since electrons are being added. This collision is called ‘inelastic’ since fluoro lamps always have some loss of energy.
Using some more scientific terms, these high energy gas atoms become fairly unstable once electrons are added, which causes ultraviolet light to be emitted. Ultraviolet light is not visible to human eyes though, and this is where the fluorescence actually comes in. The interior of fluorescent lights have a layer of fluoro coating, and this is what really creates the light. This happens because the ultraviolet photons are absorbed by the fluorescent coating which causes another energy jump in the chamber, and then and energy drop right after. This change in energy emits photons which are visible to the human eye. This reaction is what created the visible light you see from fluorescent grow lights.
This process is very complicated and can certainly be very confusing too. I simplified it as best as I could in this article. If you look at other explanations online they tend to be much more complicated that what I have described here surprisingly. Hopefully you have found this article interesting, since now you can say that you know about the process which causes fluorescent grow lights to illuminate.