June 27, 2022 — The energy-levels of semiconductors can be rearranged by coupling between light particles (photons) and excited electrons so that a formerly dark material becomes optically ...

The photoelectric effect, first explained in 1905, transformed our understanding of how light interacts with matter. When ...

Because quantum dots can communicate through the entanglement of light particles, or photons, the researchers designed dots that emit photons when single electrons leap from a higher energy level to a ...

For example, in the 1960s, Caltech alumnus Jon H. Shirley (PhD '63), put forth mathematical ideas about how to solve for electron-energy levels in a material in the presence of light.

The gap, called a band gap, between the two thresholds contain electron energy levels that simply cannot be occupied in the material. This occurs because of the wave nature of electrons.

When light shines on one of these molecules, an electron is momentarily excited before passing its energy over to a nearby molecule with a slightly lower energy level. In this way energy can flow ...

Different isotopes of the same atom have slightly different electron energy levels: an effect called “isotope shift”. As a result, laser light of the right wavelength will cause an electronic ...

Electron energy levels are quantized. This means the electron can only have certain values of energy. When an electron moves from a higher to lower energy level light is produced.

For the right choice of energy levels, this should happen extremely quickly - the electron should become locked between the two levels. In the 1986 experiments, the electron in the trapped atom ...