Comparative study of isotope and chemical effects on the exciton states in LiH crystals

Scientific interest, technological promise and increased availability of highly enriched isotope have led to a sharp rise in the number of experimental and theoretical studies with isotopically controlled crystals. Isotope pure compounds are really the material of future mankind. LiH has a giant isotope effect. Therefore, this review in the first step is devoted to some peculiarities of exciton states in isotope pure and mixed crystals of LiH. Excitons are the energetically lowest excitations of the electronic system in an ideal, crystallized insulator (semiconductor) at zero temperature. It is a collective excitation which has the full translational symmetry of the crystal lattice. For the first time a systematic analysis of experimental results is presented of isotopic and chemical effects on the exciton states observed in LiH_xD_1−x crystals of various isotopic (and chemical) composition (0≤x≤1) using low temperature optical and luminescence spectroscopy. LiH (LiD) is an direct band-gap material with an energy gap 4.992 (5.095) eV at low temperature. Substituting a light isotope with a heavy one (or H→F) increases the interband transition energy (E_g) and the binding energy (E_b) of the Wannier–Mott exciton as well as the magnitude of the longitudinal–transverse splitting. The nonlinear variation of E_g, E_b with the isotope (or F) concentration is due to the compositional disordering of the crystal lattice and is consist with the concentration dependence of line half-width in exciton reflection and luminescence spectra. The free exciton luminescence spectrum of the LiH (LiH_xD_1−x, LiH_xF_1−x; 0≤x≤1) crystals under optical (X-ray) excitations consists of a narrow zero-phonon line and its more wider 5LO replicas. At 100 % substitution of hydrogen by deuterium the energy shift of the maximum of zero-phonon line is the following: ΔE=E_n=1s(LiD)−E_n=1s(LiH)=95 meV. The shift of the emission line maximum of 2LO replica overlaps the energetical interval of ≤200meV. The nonlinear dependence of the free exciton luminescence (especially LiH_xF_1−x (LiD_xF_1−x)) intensity on the excitation density allows to consider these crystals as potential solid state lasers in the UV part of spectrum. It is shown that potential fluctuation due to compositional disorder of alloy have a strong effect on both the exciton broadening and the band-gap energy shift. The review closes with a brief discussion of the present and future applications of these crystals.