McPherson Inc. has been contracted to build a characterization system that will help the Polish Academy of Science’s Institute of Low Temperature and Structure develop vacuum ultraviolet excitable phosphors. The benign discharge of a noble gas will replace mercury excitation for phosphor emission under environmentally acceptable conditions. The research group, led by Przemyslaw Deren, plans to use the McPherson system to measure and characterize luminescence properties of phosphors and crystals in the 120- to 1800-nm range. The effort is intended to help create more efficient methods of commercial lighting. There remains work to realize a viable, efficient vacuum UV excited phosphor, which will solve two important problems: ecology and efficiency. Today’s compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) often still use mercury, which is harmful to humans and nature. The new vacuum UV phosphors are excited instead by environmentally benign discharge in noble gases. The vacuum UV phosphors will be twice as energy-efficient as today’s CFLs. The new spectrometer system from McPherson will be used to study the quantum cutting phenomenon and eventually to obtain a new class of lighting. The instrument allows tunable, monochromatic vacuum UV sample excitation and subsequent emission measurements from the vacuum UV to the near-IR. For more information, visit: www.mcphersoninc.com