Faculty Publications

Title

One-photon rare earth optical transitions: recent theoretical developments

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 1993

Abstract

‘The puzzle of rare earth spectra in solids’, a term first coined by van Vleck, was solved 30 years ago by Judd and Ofelt. The rich variety of sharp optical absorption and emission lines characteristic of 4f N →4f N lanthanide transitions are parity forbidden in the free ions. However, in the quantitative Judd-Ofelt theory, observation of these transitions is explained through simple configuration mixing caused by a noncentrosymmetric crystal field, allowing opposite-parity excited configurations to become slightly mixed into 4f N.

Journal Title

Solid State Luminescence: Theory, materials, and devices

First Page

97

Last Page

131

Link to Full Text

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