Electrons optical excitations

Electronic and optical excitations usually occur between the upper valence bands and lowest conduction band. In optical excitations, electrons are transferred from the valence band to the conduction band. This process leaves an empty state in the valence band. These empty states are called holes. Conservation of wavevectors must be obeyed in these transitions + k = k where is the wavevector of the photon, k is the... 

As mentioned earlier, CL is a powerful tool for the characterization of optical properties of wide band-gap materials, such as diamond, for which optical excitation sources are not readily available. In addition, electron-beam excitation of solids may produce much greater carrier generation rates than typical optical excitation. In such cases, CL microscopy and spectroscopy are valuable methods in identifying various impurities, defects, and their complexes, and in providing a powerful means for the analysis of their distribution, with spatial resolution on the order of 1 pm and less. ... 

How must this theory be modified to describe the effect of the optical excitation The incident electric and magnetic X-ray fields are now pulses Ex(r, t) = Exo(t) exp[j(q r - Oxt)] and Hx(r, t) = Hxo(t) exp[/(q/r - Oxt)]. They still are plane waves with a carrier frequency Ctx, but their amphtudes Exo(t) and Hxo(t) vary with time. The same statement applies to the electron density n r, t), which also is time dependent. However, these variations are all slow with time scales on the order of 1/Ox, and one can neglect 5Exo(0/ 8Hxo(t)/8t as compared to iOxExo(t) and iTlxHxo(0- Detailed calculations then show that [17]... 

Optical emission is a result of electron impact excitation or dissociation, or ion impact. As an example, the SiH radical is formed by electron impact on silane, which yields an excited or superexcited silane molecule (e + SiHa SiH -t-e ). The excess energy in SiH is released into the fragments SiH SiH -I-H2 + H. The excited SiH fragments spontaneously release their excess energy by emitting a photon at a wavelength around 414 nm. the bluish color of the silane discharge. In addition, the emission lines from Si. H, and H have also been observed at 288, 656, and 602 nm, respectively. 

The electron is excited from a filled initial state f below the Fermi level F to an empty final state f above F. Momentum conservation will be provided by a lattice vector or in some cases by a surface vector. The transition probability is mainly determined by the optical excitation matrix element containing the joint density of states. 

The redox potential diagram in eq. 1 illustrates that the effect of optical excitation is to create an excited state which has enhanced properties both as an oxidant and reductant, compared to the ground state. The results of a number of experiments have illustrated that it is possible for the excited state to undergo either oxidative or reductive electron transfer quenching (2). An example of oxidative electron transfer quenching is shown in eq. 2 where the oxidant is the alkyl pyridinium ion, paraquat (3). 

In the scheme, the assumption is made that the only important quenching event is electron transfer and that energy transfer quenching is negligible. The series of electron transfer events in the scheme are initiated by optical excitation to give the excited state and the electron transfer reactions which occur fol-... 

In the lowest optically excited state of the molecule, we have one electron (t u) and one hole (/i ), each with spin 1/2 which couple through the Coulomb interaction and can either form a singlet 5 state (5 = 0), or a triplet T state (5 = 1). Since the electric dipole matrix element for optical transitions H em = (ep A)/(me) does not depend on spin, there is a strong spin selection rule (A5 = 0) for optical electric dipole transitions. This strong spin selection rule arises from the very weak spin-orbit interaction for carbon. Thus, to turn on electric dipole transitions, appropriate odd-parity vibrational modes must be admixed with the initial and (or) final electronic states, so that the weak absorption below 2.5 eV involves optical transitions between appropriate vibronic levels. These vibronic levels are energetically favored by virtue... 

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