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Molecular Physics

Radiationless transitions: Their effect on absorption line shapes and fluorescence decay curves

Charles A. Langhoff, G. Wilse Robinson

Published Aug 1, 1973• 39 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Radiationless transitions, and the interactions causing them, perturb absorption lineshapes and the time course of light emission. In this paper we use the standard model of a discrete state interacting with a continuum, but we allow the continuum density of states to assume various energy dependent forms. This energy dependence causes the absorption line shape to deviate from lorentzian in interesting ways. The emission decay curves may also become highly non-exponential, and show quantum beat effects in many situations.

DOI
10.1080/00268977300101611

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Radiationless transitions, and the interactions causing them, perturb absorption lineshapes and the time course of light emission. In this paper we use the standard model of a discrete state interacting with a continuum, but we allow the continuum density of states to assume various energy dependent forms. This energy dependence causes the absorption line shape to deviate from lorentzian in interesting ways. The emission decay curves may also become highly non-exponential, and show quantum beat effects in many situations.
Radiation can change the energy state of matter via three optical processes: spontaneous emission, absorption and stimulated emission. In spontaneous emission, an excited atomic or molecular state decays to a lower energy state with the emission of a photon of energy equal to the difference in the quantum state energies. Photon absorption is the reverse process, with a photon causing excitation from a lower to an excited quantum state. Stimulated emission was first proposed by Einstein in a paper published in 1917. He attempted to balance spontaneous emission and photon absorption, but could not get the correct balance without the postulated process of stimulated emission (see Section 4.2). With stimulated emission, an excited quantum state is stimulated to decay to a lower quantum state by an impinging photon. The existing photon survives with another identical photon being created (so that energy is conserved). The rates at which radiative transitions occur can be calculated using quantum mechanics. The time-dependent Schrodinger equation is used with the system wavefunction comprising time-varying linear combinations of the two wavefunctions for the lower and upper quantum states. In semi-classical treatments, an atom is treated quantum mechanically with the radiation field treated classically. There is a perturbation in energy associated with, say, the electric field of the radiation interacting with the electric dipole of the atom, though other interactions can be significant if the electric dipole interaction energy is small. In absorption, for example, a differential equation representing the change in ‘weighting’ of the wavefunction from the lower to upper state is obtained. A ‘time constant’ for the speed of change represents the rate of the radiative process. We examine the quantum mechanical nature of radiation absorption in Section 10.1 before discussing (Section 10.3) another important parameter arising with radiative transitions between discrete bound quantum states: the lineshape function. Quantum Theory of the Atom–Radiation Interaction An expression for the Einstein B-coefficient for photo-absorption is derived using quantum mechanics in this section. Einstein determined the detailed balance relationship between the rates of spontaneous emission, photo-absorption and stimulated emission when light interacts with an atom by considering an atomic system of two energy levels which are in equilibrium with a black-body radiation field. We use a semi-classical treatment where the atom is treated quantum mechanically and the radiation field is treated as a classical oscillating electric field.
The processes of absorption and emission of radiation by a system of two interacting atoms is investigated. Separation between the atoms is assumed to be much larger than the atomic diameter, and interactions considered are those between the individual atoms and the radiation field and the electrostatic interaction between the atoms. Calculations include those for the time-dependent probability amplitude of the intermediate and final states as well as that of the emission line shape. The line shape of the emitted radiation consists of two peaks whose amplitude, separation, and half-width are functions of both the internuclear separation R of the atoms and the energy difference of the excited states of the two atoms. For a large energy difference, the peaks are distinct; for small energy differences, the peaks are distinct at smaller separations, but merge toward the line shape characteristic of a single, isolated atom as R increases.
Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight. Make me a child again, just for tonight. –Elizabeth Akers Allen Since the time of Kirchhoff it has been known that, when light is passed through an atomic gas, those wavelengths are observed that would be emitted if the gas were incandescent. If the gas is sufficiently cold, then the wavelengths observed are limited to ground-state transitions. As the temperature of the sample is elevated, wavelengths corresponding to transitions between excited states become absorbing, and balances between emission and absorption occur. The study of the central wavelengths of emission lines or absorption notches is known as first-order spectroscopy, and it provides information on the energy-level structure of the atom. The study of the shape of these lines in frequency space is known as second-order spectroscopy, and provides information on the lifetime of the level and the collision rates and temperature of the gas. Thus, whereas first-order spectroscopy shows that emission and absorption measurements yield the same central wavelengths, second-order spectroscopy shows that the natural linewidth for emission and absorption are both specified by the level lifetime, and that the intensity of emission and absorption features both involve the linestrength factor (through the emission transition probability rate and the absorption oscillator strength). The connection between the lifetime and the linewidth can be made plausible by a simple semiclassical model. When an electron is excited to a specific orbit in an atom, its binding energy is established through the exchange of virtual photons with the effective central core. If the perturbations that eventually cause the electron to make a transition from that orbit are weak, the meanlife will be long.
A simple quantum-mechanical model consisting of a two-level system coupled to a continuum, where the interaction can be varied from perturbative to strong, is examined for what can be learned about quantum mechanical decay using elementary methods. The decay spectrum and time dependence of the amplitudes can be calculated in this model, without resorting to perturbation theory. The spectrum is not precisely Lorentzian nor is the decay precisely exponential, features that appear to be shared by all quantum-mechanical models of decaying systems. The conditions for exponential decay and some of the reasons for deviation from this at both short and long times are discussed.
The effects of different laser line shapes on the intensity and spectrum of resonance fluorescence from a two-level atom are investigated. The laser model considered is that of an ideal single-mode laser operating high above threshold, with constant amplitude and undergoing phase-frequency fluctuations analogous to Brownian motion. As the correlation time of the frequency fluctuations increases from zero to infinity, the laser line shape changes from Lorentzian to Gaussian in a continuous way. It is shown that for intermediate and strong fields, the average intensity of fluorescence in the case of a resonant broadband Lorentzian line shape is higher than that in the case of a Gaussian line shape with the same bandwidth and total power. This is in contrast to the weak-field case where the higher peak power of the Gaussian line shape makes it more effective than the Lorentzian line shape. It is also shown that in the case of a nonzero frequency correlation time (non-Lorentzian line shape) the intensity of fluorescence undergoes non-Markovian fluctuations. In relation to the spectrum of resonance fluorescence, it is shown that as the line shape is varied from Lorentzian to Gaussian the following changes take place: In the case of off-resonance excitation, the asymmetry of the spectrum decreases. In the case of resonant excitation, the center-peak to side-peak height ratio for the triplet structure increases. Moreover, the recently predicted center-line dip, which develops in the spectrum in the case of broadband excitation when the Rabi frequency and the bandwidth are nearly equal, becomes increasingly deeper.