Electron excitation
transfer of a bound electron to a more energetic but still bound state
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 it is achieved through 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.
Excited states in nuclear, atomic, and molecule systems have distinct energy values, allowing external energy to be absorbed in the appropriate proportions.
In general, the excitation of electrons in atoms strongly varies from excitation in solids, due to the different nature of the electronic levels and the structural properties of some solids. The electronic excitation (or deexcitation) can take place by several processes such as:
collision with more energetic electrons (Auger recombination, impact ionization, ...)
absorption / emission of a photon,
absorption of several photons (so called multiphoton ionization); e.g., quasi-monochromatic laser light.
The public source identifies “Electron excitation” as transfer of a bound electron to a more energetic but still bound state. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Electron, excitation and transfer.
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This entry incorporates text from “Electron excitation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.