Luminophore

 ( Luminescence ) 

In chemistry, a luminophore (sometimes shortened to lumophore) is an atom or functional group in a chemical compound that is responsible for its luminescence properties. Luminophores can be either Organic compound or inorganic.

Luminophores can be further classified as or , depending on the nature of the excited state responsible for the emission of . However, some luminophores cannot be classified as being exclusively fluorophores or phosphors. Examples include transition-metal complexes such as tris(bipyridine)ruthenium(II) chloride, whose luminescence comes from an excited (nominally triplet) metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) state, which is not a true triplet state in the strict sense of the definition; and colloidal quantum dots, whose emissive state does not have either a purely singlet or triplet spin.

Most luminophores consist of conjugated π systems or transition-metal complexes. There are also purely inorganic luminophores, such as zinc sulfide doped with rare-earth metal ions, rare-earth metal oxysulfides doped with other rare-earth metal ions, yttrium oxide doped with rare-earth metal ions, zinc orthosilicate doped with manganese ions, etc. Luminophores can be observed in action in fluorescent lights, television screens, computer monitor screens, organic light-emitting diodes and bioluminescence.

The correct, textbook terminology is luminophore, not lumophore, although the latter term has been frequently used in the chemical literature.

• Chromophore
• Fluorophore
• Phosphor