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Conduction by Polarons in Ionic Crystals

  • Chapter
Point Defects in Solids

Abstract

Strongly ionic crystals such as the alkali or silver halides have filled valence bands which are separated from empty conduction bands by forbidden regions as wide as several electron-volts. Consequently these materials are insulators at low temperature. On the other hand, small photocurrents can be made to flow when the crystals are illuminated with light capable of producing electrons and holes. Photoexcitation takes place in highly perfect crystals either by a one-photon process across the band gap or, at very high light intensity, by a two-photon process. In the latter case, the sum of the photon energies must be equal to or greater than the band gap. Defects which become electron donors can be introduced into ionic crystals just as in semiconductors. In the alkali halides, the most common donor is the F center, or electron trapped at a negative-ion vacancy, and this defect can be formed either by radiation, for example, X-rays, or by heating in alkali metal vapor, i.e., additive coloration. The F-center electron in its ground state is bound with too great an energy to be thermally ionized at room temperature. Therefore, colored alkali halide crystals can be made conducting most conveniently by illuminating with light whose quantum energy is equal to or greater than the ionization energy of the F center, usually 3 or 4 eV.

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  1. Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA

    Frederick C. Brown

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  1. Department of Physics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    James H. Crawford Jr. (Chairman) & Lawrence M. Slifkin (Chairman) & 

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Brown, F.C. (1972). Conduction by Polarons in Ionic Crystals. In: Crawford, J.H., Slifkin, L.M. (eds) Point Defects in Solids. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2970-1_8

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