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The ruby pressure scale converts a shift of a ruby fluorescence spectral line into pressure. Excitation light produces a fluorescence emission spectrum; fitting its $R_1$ line gives a wavelength ${\lambda }_{R_1}$. The reference ${\lambda }_{R_1,0}$ must be measured or assigned at specified reference pressure and temperature. The difference $\Delta \lambda$ is an observable; interpreting it as pressure requires a pressure calibration and suitable stress conditions.

The original 1972 report found sharp $R_1,R_2$ emission shifting toward lower photon energy as pressure increased; it tentatively associated broadening with nonhydrostatic conditions.^[ref] In use, excitation rejection, a calibrated wavelength axis and a fitted background matter because leakage or background can move an apparent peak. A brighter trace improves counting statistics but does not alone establish a correct pressure scale.

Stanley Block coauthored a pressure-measurement method using the sharp fluorescence lines of ruby inside a diamond anvil cell. Compression shifts the line energies, allowing a tiny optical marker to report pressure in a region inaccessible to an ordinary mechanical gauge. Calibration turns that spectral shift into a quantitative pressure reading. Line broadening can also reveal departures from uniform hydrostatic compression, so the spectrum contains information about the measurement conditions as well as the mean pressure.^[ref]

A physicist who led crystallographic research and developed ruby fluorescence pressure measurements.^[ref]