Optical Properties of Materials!

Interaction

of light with matter!

Phosphors! Lasers! Photonic

Band Gap Materials!

Chapter 8 Smart & Moore

Interaction of Light with Matter!

When an atom or molecule absorbs (or emits) light, it undergoes a transition to a state of higher (or lower) energy. ! E = h! Transitions involving absorption (or emission) of visible light correspond to excitation (or relaxation) of electrons into (or from) excited states.! Whether such transitions are probable depends on the appropriate selection rules. For a molecule or atom, the selection rules for an allowed transition are ! s = 0, l = 1 !

Phosphors and Lasers: Well look at two general cases:!

1) absorption/emission by impurities or dopants (isolated ions) in host lattice (phosphors, lasers)! 2) absorption/emission by delocalized electrons in bulk solids (LEDs, GaAs lasers...) !

More specically, these cases correspond to:!

1. Large Band-Gap Insulators (large band-gap), e.g. Y2O2S! In this case, activator ions have discrete energy levels ! that are often modied by the crystal eld of the host.
2. Semiconductors (small band-gap), e.g. CdSe! In this case, the emission is determined by the bandgap (electrons falling from the conduction band to the valence band). !

Phosphors!
Phosphors are materials that luminesce visible light ! when excited by higher energy light (UV or x-ray) ! or electrons.

UV light

Phosphor

green light

If time between excitation and emission is short (10-8 sec)! ! ! ! uorescence! ! phosphorescence
If time is longer

Insulator Hosts!
These hosts are generally white, inorganic powders doped ! with small amounts of activator ions.! The wavelength of light they give off depends on the ! activator, not the source of excitation.!
Excitation is absorbed by! the host, then transferred to the! activator. Light is generated when ! excited state electrons in the ! activator return to the ground state. !

Stokes and Anti-Stokes Emission!

Normally, emission is lower energy than excitation.! The difference in energy is called the Stokes shift.!
Stokes shift!

Antistokes behavior is when the emission is higher energy ! than the excitation. This involves a two-photon process.

Subtractive Color!
Subtractive Color is the! color we see when white! light is reected from ! a surface.!
(We are seeing the ! color not absorbed! by the surface.)!

The primary colors ! for subtractive color are ! magenta, cyan and yellow.! These are important for reective coatings (e.g. paints).!

Additive Color!
Additive color is the! color we see when light ! is directly impacting our eyes. ! White is an additive color.! A combination of all wave-! lengths in the visible ! spectrum appears white! to our eyes.! The additive primary colors are red, green and blue.! We can make the eyes see any color with a combination ! of red, green and blue.!

Chromaticity Diagrams!
In the phosphor world,! researchers worry about ! chromaticity diagrams.! Basically, the more intense! and pure the red, blue and! green emission, the better ! one can make eyes see the! entire visible spectrum.! Important for lamps, CRTs! and plasma displays.!

Some phosphors!

Some more phosphors...!

Used in TVs, CRTs:




YVO4: Eu
Red

(Zn,Cd)S: Ag
Green

ZnS: Ag
Blue

Used in X-ray Imaging:

LaOBr:Tm
Blue

Gd2O2S: Tb
Green

Applications of phoshors!

Lamps (uorescent lighting)! Display technology (CRTs...)! Medical x-ray imaging!

Fluorescent lights!
An incandescent bulb ! works by heating a ! tungsten lament to! very high temperatures.! The light that results ! is black body radiation.

Fluorescent lights (cont)!

In a uorescent bulb, an electric discharge excites a small amount of Hg vapor, which emits UV radiation.! The UV radiation excites phosphor particles coated on the inside of the glass, which emit visible light.!

Color TVs and Cathode Ray Tubes (CRTs)!

Three electron guns,! one for each color.! Shadow mask ensures! that each beam hits ! the intended color! phosphor dot.
There are over one ! million phosphor dots on ! a 21 screen.
Screen is scanned more! than 30 times per second.!

Plasma Displays

A plasma display actually has the same type of red, green and blue phosphors as a CRT. The big difference is that the plasma display uses an inert gas discharge cell, containing each phosphor dot, to generate ultraviolet radiation that excites the phosphor (the term plasma simply means a partially ionized gas). When a high voltage is applied to the inert gas, it ionizes (like in a fluorescent bulb), producing UV radiation. This radiation strikes the adjacent phosphor, causing it to produce light.
Source: www.sencore.com/newsletter/ June02/Plasma%20Wh...

Medical X-ray Imaging!

When you get an
x-ray, the x-rays
are being magnied
by phosphor screens.
A good x-ray
phosphor emits
3-4,000 visible
photons per
x-ray absorbed.

Lasers: Impurity emission from Insulating Crystals!

Ruby: Cr: Al2O3

States of Cr3+ involved in ruby laser emission

Schematic of a Ruby Laser

Other common impurity ions used in lasers!

Also

Nd:YAG (host = yttrium aluminum garnet, Y3Al5O12

Ti:Sapphire

Semiconductor Lasers!
A population inversion is created by creating e-hole pairs which are trapped in the middle GaAs layer. Lasing occurs when recombination of these e-hole pairs is stimulated.
h+ e-

Photonic Bandgap Materials!