About Swiss Super-LumiNova® Luminous Pigments

Even in the darkest of nights, the dial gleams brilliantly. If you want to be able to read your watch in complete darkness, you find yourself dependent on luminescent hands and indexes.

Super-Luminova, an applied flourescent material improves the night perceptibility of watches.

Swiss Super-LumiNova® is non-radioactive, REACH compatible, highly temperature resistant and resistant to environmental influences.

History

A Japanese man named Kenzo Nemoto started a luminous paint business in 1941. He was contracted to equip Japan’s military aircraft and submarines with glowing gauges and meters during World War II.

After the war, there wasn’t as much demand for this service so Mr. Nemoto had to find other uses for his luminous product. That’s when he began going to homes to paint the hands and markers of clocks, and later moved onto applying the paint to watches. At this point in time, Nemoto & Co. was born, and went on to further developed new phosphorescent pigment technology. This officially became known to the watch industry as LumiNova in 1993. The invention was patented by Nemoto and is licensed to other watch brands and manufacturers.

In the same year (1993), RC Tritec AG was founded as a Swiss based company that holds the licensing rights to produce and distribute LumiNova under the registered name Super-LumiNova.

The Swiss Super-LumiNova was born from that time.

How Does It Work

It works like a light storage battery, where light charges the battery and afterwards the light is continuously emitted. This activation and subsequent light emission process can be repeated again and again, and the material does not suffer any ageing.

It is chargeable with sunlight or artificial light. Mixed with a suitable specific binder, Swiss Super-LumiNova® is applied on dials and hands.

Afterglow Colors(Emission Color in Darkness)

Swiss Super-LumiNova® is available in eight different color lines:

  • BL(Blue Line, emission at 485 nm)
  • GL(Green Line, emission at 515 nm)
  • VL(Violet Line, emission at 440 nm)
  • WL(White Line, complete white emission)
  • YL(Yellow Line, yellow emission)
  • OL(Orange Line, orange emission)
  • PL(Pink Line, pink emission)
  • UL(Ultramarine Line, ultramarine blue emission)

The human eye has the highest sensitivity to the green emission, when coming directly from sunlight into the dark (photopic vision).

After adaption to darkness, the human eye is changing to scotopic vision with higher sensitivity but no color perception. In such situations, the blue emission is better visible by the human eye.

If you are looking for a dark, very eye-pleasing emission color, the Swiss Super-LumiNova® violet line might be your favorite choice.

The Swiss Super-LumiNova® White Line pigments with their white body colors (appearance on daylight) and the white emission in the dark offer various design possibilities which have never been seen before.

Orange or red bodycolored pigments show a yellow to orange/ red emission due to an emission shift.

Color Codes and Brightness

C3 – Yellow with the brightest glow

BGW9 – Light bluish-white with about 95% glow of C3

C1 – White with about 31% brightness of C3

C5 – Greenish-yellow with 89% brightness

C7 – Green with 84% brightness

C9 – Bluish-green with about 83% brightness

 

Qualities of Swiss Super-LumiNova®

Since the very beginning of the Swiss Super-LumiNova® era, we have always put a lot of efforts in improving its performance steadily. Different research projects have led to Grade A and now to the superior Grade X1 quality. The three available Swiss Super-LumiNova® qualities are:

  • Standard Grade
  • Grade A
  • Grade X1

The new Swiss Super-LumiNova® Grade X1 shows a performance increase of up to 60% after two hours compared to the standard grade. By using Swiss Super-LumiNova® Grade X1, the legibility according to the ISO 3157 standard will be extended by at least a factor of 1.6 on the long term.

Swiss Super-LumiNova® Grade X1 defines a new quality standard of night visibility on your watch, which has never been seen before.

 

Swiss Super-LumiNova®’s Intensity Decreases Over Time

Because you must first charge Super-LumiNova with light, its brightness varies depending on the amount of light that has been stored. As a result, the emission of light is not linear, but its intensity decreases as time passes. Based on the quality of the Super-LumiNova material and the length and intensity of the light source, which the watch was exposed to, the glow time can vary significantly from just a few minutes up to about 15 hours of continuous luminescence.

 

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