Defects in the silver halide photographic process

The imaging efficiency of today's photographic film and paper is influenced in a variety of ways. Among them, the incorporation of dopants is widely used to increase efficiency, control contrast or improve imaging deficiencies such as reciprocity law failure. Transition metal-organic ligand dopants are attractive because the organic ligand influences the photographic properties. Experimental studies have shown that many of these dopants incorporate well into the silver halide microcrystal even with large organic ligands. In this paper, experimental and computational results are presented on a variety of Ir-OL dopants in AgCl where OL is a small nitrogen and/or sulfur-containing heterocycle. Electron paramagnetic resonance methods provide information about the electronic structure, electron trapping properties and the stability of the electron trap state. These results are complemented by ab initio studies that give information about the optimum structure, charge compensation and the possibility of electron and hole trapping.