The CIE colorimetric system fails to calculate the chroma of a Nd:YAG crystal under the fluorescent illuminant F7

摘要

The rare earth element neodymium doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) is a laser crystal widely used for producing laser in the infrared range. Neodymium causes many characteristic absorption peaks in the transmittance spectrum of the Nd:YAG crystal in the visible range. The crystal appears pink under daylight and incandescent light, and colorless under fluorescent light. The colorimetric calculation results of chroma under the CIE standard fluorescent illuminant F7 do not agree with the color appearance under fluorescent light. The calculated chroma values should be near zero to agree with a colorless appearance, but it is actually 11.79 in the CIELAB color space. This failure of the colorimetric calculation is caused by the color matching functions of the CIE colorimetric observers. The color matching functions do not agree with the spectral sensitivity curves of the human eye, especially the x-bar(λ) function does not matches the spectral sensitivity curve of the long wavelength cone photoreceptors.