Pigments, Minerals and Gemstones

In the case of boron impurities a complementary situation occurs. Boron has only three outer bonding electrons instead of the four found on carbon. Each boron impurity atom occupies a carbon position, forming Be, which results in the creation of a set of new acceptor energy levels just 0.64 x 10 19 J (0.4 eV) above the valence band. The transition of an electron from the valence band to this acceptor level has an absorption peak in the infrared, but the high-energy tail of the absorption band spills into the red at 700 nm. The boron-doped diamonds therefore absorb some red light and leave the gemstone with an overall blue color. 

Electron transitions in transition-metal ions usually involve electron movement between the d orbitals (d-d transitions) and in lanthanides between the / orbitals (/-/ transitions). The band structure of the solid plays only a small part in the energy of these transitions, and, when these atoms are introduced into crystals, they can be represented as a set of levels within the wide band gap of the oxide (Fig. 9.15). 

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