Document Type
Poster Session
Publication Date
Summer 2024
Meeting Name
2024 American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting
Meeting Date
July 6-10, 2024
Meeting Location
Boston, MA
Abstract/ Summary
Since Peshkin’s invention of the original open-hardware lightboard, tempered low-iron glass has been the preferred lightboard writing surface: low-iron for maximal transparency, tempered for safety and durability. Unfortunately, the tempering process often leaves marks on the glass that become highly visible when illuminated with edge-mounted white LEDs. One obvious idea is to illuminate the glass with UV LEDs; the UV light should cause the fluorescent marker writing to visibly fluoresce, while UV light scattered by defects should be invisible. McCorkle and Whitener (2017, 2020) reported a qualitative performance enhancement for near-visible UV blacklight illumination, but no systematic investigations have been reported. I have therefore undertaken a systematic comparison of UV vs. white-light lightboard illumination. My initial results indicate that near-visible blacklight UV LEDs do indeed provide superior masking of tempering-related defects; these and further results will be presented.
Repository Citation
Looney, Craig. Systematic Comparison of Ultraviolet vs. White Light for Lightboard Illumination (poster presentation), 2024 AAPT Summer Meeting, Westin Boston Seaport District (Boston, MA), July 6-10, 2024.