ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT

Ultraviolet light is a segment of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum with wavelengths shorter than those of visible light but longer those of soft X-rays.

Electromagnetic Spectrum

Ultraviolet light ranges in wavelength from about 380 nm down to about 200 nm, beyond which is the area of “vacuum ultraviolet”. (One nanometre (nm) is one billionth of a metre.)

The UV band is further subdivided into three smaller ranges:

UVA – long wave (black-light) UV	380nm to 320nm
UVB – medium wave UV	320nm to 280nm
UVC – short wave (germicidal) UV	280nm to 200 nm

As the wavelength gets shorter, the energy level of the light increases. UVA causes a suntan, while. UVB can cause sunburn. (Which is why sunscreens offer “both UVA and UVB protection”.) UVC is called germicidal for a reason – it is powerful enough to kill bacteria directly. Of course, this also means that with sufficient exposure, UVC can damage human tissue.

But one characteristic of UV light is that it can be stopped by materials that allow visible light to pass. Ordinary glass will allow some UVA to pass through, but will stop most UVB and all UVC. Quartz glass will allow most UVB to pass. But UVC will be stopped by almost any material, including air. (This is why UVC acts as a germicide – because the UVC in sunlight is stopped by the atmosphere, it doesn’t reach the ground, and bacteria have not been able to develop resistance to it.)

Past experience in testing UBI indicates that the major benefit of UBI is derived from the UVB portion of the spectrum. However, typical UBI systems use lamps that produce most of their light energy in the UVC range, with only a small portion being UVB or UVA. Prolonged exposure to UVC light is harmful to living tissue, so exposure times must be severely limited.

So if a lamp produces mainly UVC light and very little of the beneficial UVB, and the time a blood sample is exposed to the UVC must therefore be limited, it follows that the amount of UVB received by the sample is extremely small. This is what leads to the need for multiple treatments using existing systems.

That is why part of the Lumen approach is to use lamps that produce light almost exclusively in the beneficial UVB range of the spectrum, with only a little bit of harmless UVA produced. This eliminates the potentially damaging UVC light that limits the existing systems, and thus permits much longer exposure times.

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