Electron Excitation
Electron excitation is the transfer of a bound electron to a more energetic, but still bound state. This can be done by photoexcitation (PE), where the electron absorbs a photon and gains all its energy or by collisional excitation (CE), where the electron receives energy from a collision with another, energetic electron. Within a semiconductor crystal lattice, thermal excitation is a process where lattice vibrations provide enough energy to transfer electrons to a higher energy band such as a more energetic sublevel or energy level. When an excited electron falls back to a state of lower energy, it undergoes electron relaxation (deexcitation). This is accompanied by the emission of a photon (radiative relaxation/spontaneous emission) or by a transfer of energy to another particle. The energy released is equal to the difference in energy levels between the electron energy states. In general, the excitation of electrons in atoms strongly varies from excitation in solids, due to t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Electron Excitation
Electron excitation is the transfer of a bound electron to a more energetic, but still bound state. This can be done by photoexcitation (PE), where the electron absorbs a photon and gains all its energy or by collisional excitation (CE), where the electron receives energy from a collision with another, energetic electron. Within a semiconductor crystal lattice, thermal excitation is a process where lattice vibrations provide enough energy to transfer electrons to a higher energy band such as a more energetic sublevel or energy level. When an excited electron falls back to a state of lower energy, it undergoes electron relaxation (deexcitation). This is accompanied by the emission of a photon (radiative relaxation/spontaneous emission) or by a transfer of energy to another particle. The energy released is equal to the difference in energy levels between the electron energy states. In general, the excitation of electrons in atoms strongly varies from excitation in solids, due to t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Energy Level
A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound—that is, confined spatially—can only take on certain discrete values of energy, called energy levels. This contrasts with classical particles, which can have any amount of energy. The term is commonly used for the energy levels of the electrons in atoms, ions, or molecules, which are bound by the electric field of the nucleus, but can also refer to energy levels of nuclei or vibrational or rotational energy levels in molecules. The energy spectrum of a system with such discrete energy levels is said to be quantized. In chemistry and atomic physics, an electron shell, or principal energy level, may be thought of as the orbit of one or more electrons around an atom's nucleus. The closest shell to the nucleus is called the " shell" (also called "K shell"), followed by the " shell" (or "L shell"), then the " shell" (or "M shell"), and so on farther and farther from the nucleus. The shells correspond with the principal qu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Dressed Particle
In theoretical physics, the term dressed particle refers to a bare particle together with some excitations of other quantum fields that are physically inseparable from the bare particle. For example, a dressed electron includes the cloud of virtual electron–positron pairs and photons surrounding the original electron. A further noteworthy example is represented by polaritons in solid-state physics, dressed quasiparticles of dipolar excitations in a medium with photons. In radiobiology, a dressed particle is a bare particle together with its Debye sphere that neutralizes its electric charge. Dressed particles are also often called clothed particles. See also * Constituent quark A constituent quark is a current quark with a notional "covering" induced by the renormalization group. In the low-energy limit of QCD, a description by means of perturbation theory is not possible: Here, no asymptotic freedom exists, but collecti ... References Theoretical physics Quantum field ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Quantum Electrodynamics
In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved. QED mathematically describes all phenomena involving electrically charged particles interacting by means of exchange of photons and represents the quantum counterpart of classical electromagnetism giving a complete account of matter and light interaction. In technical terms, QED can be described as a perturbation theory of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum. Richard Feynman called it "the jewel of physics" for its extremely accurate predictions of quantities like the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron and the Lamb shift of the energy levels of hydrogen. History The first formulation of a quantum theory describing radiation and matter interaction is attributed to British scientist Paul Dirac, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Polariton
In physics, polaritons are quasiparticles resulting from strong coupling of electromagnetic waves with an electric or magnetic dipole-carrying excitation. They are an expression of the common quantum phenomenon known as level repulsion, also known as the avoided crossing principle. Polaritons describe the crossing of the dispersion of light with any interacting resonance. To this extent polaritons can also be thought of as the new normal modes of a given material or structure arising from the strong coupling of the bare modes, which are the photon and the dipolar oscillation. The polariton is a bosonic quasiparticle, and should not be confused with the polaron (a fermionic quasiparticle), which is an electron plus an attached phonon cloud. Whenever the polariton picture is valid (i.e., when the weak coupling limit is an invalid approximation), the model of photons propagating freely in crystals is insufficient. A major feature of polaritons is a strong dependency of the prop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Quasiparticle
In physics, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related emergent phenomena arising when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum. For example, as an electron travels through a semiconductor, its motion is disturbed in a complex way by its interactions with other electrons and with atomic nuclei. The electron behaves as though it has a different effective mass travelling unperturbed in vacuum. Such an electron is called an ''electron quasiparticle''. In another example, the aggregate motion of electrons in the valence band of a semiconductor or a hole band in a metal behave as though the material instead contained positively charged quasiparticles called ''electron holes''. Other quasiparticles or collective excitations include the ''phonon'', a quasiparticle derived from the vibrations of atoms in a solid, and the '' plasmons'', a particle derived from plasma oscillation. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Electronic Band Structure
In solid-state physics, the electronic band structure (or simply band structure) of a solid describes the range of energy levels that electrons may have within it, as well as the ranges of energy that they may not have (called ''band gaps'' or ''forbidden bands''). Band theory derives these bands and band gaps by examining the allowed quantum mechanical wave functions for an electron in a large, periodic lattice of atoms or molecules. Band theory has been successfully used to explain many physical properties of solids, such as electrical resistivity and optical absorption, and forms the foundation of the understanding of all solid-state devices (transistors, solar cells, etc.). Why bands and band gaps occur The electrons of a single, isolated atom occupy atomic orbitals each of which has a discrete energy level. When two or more atoms join together to form a molecule, their atomic orbitals overlap and hybridize. Similarly, if a large number ''N'' of identical atoms co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Eigenvalue Equation
In linear algebra, linear transformations can be represented by matrices. If T is a linear transformation mapping \mathbb^n to \mathbb^m and \mathbf x is a column vector with n entries, then T( \mathbf x ) = A \mathbf x for some m \times n matrix A, called the transformation matrix of T. Note that A has m rows and n columns, whereas the transformation T is from \mathbb^n to \mathbb^m. There are alternative expressions of transformation matrices involving row vectors that are preferred by some authors. Uses Matrices allow arbitrary linear transformations to be displayed in a consistent format, suitable for computation. This also allows transformations to be composed easily (by multiplying their matrices). Linear transformations are not the only ones that can be represented by matrices. Some transformations that are non-linear on an n-dimensional Euclidean space R''n'' can be represented as linear transformations on the ''n''+1-dimensional space R''n''+1. These include both af ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Periodic Boundary Conditions
Periodic boundary conditions (PBCs) are a set of boundary conditions which are often chosen for approximating a large (infinite) system by using a small part called a ''unit cell''. PBCs are often used in computer simulations and mathematical models. The topology of two-dimensional PBC is equal to that of a ''world map'' of some video games; the geometry of the unit cell satisfies perfect two-dimensional tiling, and when an object passes through one side of the unit cell, it re-appears on the opposite side with the same velocity. In topological terms, the space made by two-dimensional PBCs can be thought of as being mapped onto a torus ( compactification). The large systems approximated by PBCs consist of an infinite number of unit cells. In computer simulations, one of these is the original simulation box, and others are copies called ''images''. During the simulation, only the properties of the original simulation box need to be recorded and propagated. The ''minimum-image conven ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Schrödinger Equation
The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of the subject. The equation is named after Erwin Schrödinger, who postulated the equation in 1925, and published it in 1926, forming the basis for the work that resulted in his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. Conceptually, the Schrödinger equation is the quantum counterpart of Newton's second law in classical mechanics. Given a set of known initial conditions, Newton's second law makes a mathematical prediction as to what path a given physical system will take over time. The Schrödinger equation gives the evolution over time of a wave function, the quantum-mechanical characterization of an isolated physical system. The equation can be derived from the fact that the time-evolution operator must be unitary, and must therefore be generated ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Bloch's Theorem
In condensed matter physics, Bloch's theorem states that solutions to the Schrödinger equation in a periodic potential take the form of a plane wave modulated by a periodic function. The theorem is named after the physicist Felix Bloch, who discovered the theorem in 1929. Mathematically, they are written where \mathbf is position, \psi is the wave function, u is a periodic function with the same periodicity as the crystal, the wave vector \mathbf is the crystal momentum vector, e is Euler's number, and i is the imaginary unit. Functions of this form are known as Bloch functions or Bloch states, and serve as a suitable basis for the wave functions or states of electrons in crystalline solids. Named after Swiss physicist Felix Bloch, the description of electrons in terms of Bloch functions, termed Bloch electrons (or less often ''Bloch Waves''), underlies the concept of electronic band structures. These eigenstates are written with subscripts as \psi_, where n is a dis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |