Selective excitation of the luminescence of impurity centers in a solid. Theoretical model and experiment

Alexander N. Lebedenko, Yu. V. Malyukin

M. Godlewski, Krzysztof Swiatek, A. Suchocki +1 more

Dmitri Smirnov, A. S. Troshin

Francois E. Auzel

M. N. Sapozhnikov

Abstract A history of the development of selective laser spectroscopy is presented, beginning with a pioneering work by Yu. V. Denisov and V. A. Kizel in 1967, who were the first to demonstrate the possibility of removing the inhomogeneous broadening of luminescence spectra of impurity ions in glasses upon monochromatic resonance excitation. Selective excitation of optical centers can be achieved due to existence of zero-phonon transitions corresponding to narrow homogeneous zero-phonon lines in the spectra of impurity centers in solids, which are hidden in broad inhomogeneous optical bands upon usual nonselective excitation. The fundamentals of zero-phonon transition spectroscopy are considered and the mechanism of removing the inhomogeneous broadening of optical spectra of ions and molecules in crystals and amorphous solids under selective laser excitation of luminescence and persistent hole burning in absorption spectra is presented in detail. Various applications of selective laser spectroscopy for fundamental and applied studies are discussed.

W. Laasch, Herbert Hagedorn, T. Kloiber +1 more

Abstract The luminescence of Ne* centers in solid Ne is investigated. The samples are excited with synchrotron radiation in the excitonic range. By an appropriate selection of the excitation energy and by time correlated measurement of the emission spectra, overlapping luminescence bands are separated and assigned to Ne* centers in different electronic states (1P1, 3P1, 3P2) and different environments in the bulk and at the surface of the solid. Lifetime measurements and excitation spectra of spectrally selected luminescence bands support the assignments, Electronic relaxation from n ≧ 2 free excitons to the n = 1 state is found to be less effective than exciton trapping into Ne* centers. Resonance fluorescence of free Ne* atoms indicates a close connection between exciton trapping and desorption.