Photon Emission
Spontaneous Photon Emission Page in progress by kylerasmussen44 Revised by Sunny Chen (schen474)
Photon Emission is a process that occurs when an atom or other quantum system goes down an energy level, and releases a photon. This process is often incited by the absorption of a particle whose energy causes an atom to increase its energy level; in this case, spontaneous photon emission would move the atom to a lower energy level, closer to its initial state (i.e., ground state). Photon emission is responsible for most of the light that we see, being given numerous names such as luminescence, fluorescence, and phosphorescence.
The Main Idea
Spontaneous photon emission is fundamentally a quantum process, with its principles first being discovered by Paul Dirac. This phenomenon can best be described by using the theory of zero-point energy, or ground state energy. As an electron or similar particle gains enough energy to move out to a higher energy orbit then back to its ground state, it has to lose energy to fall back down into the lower orbitals. The only way it can do this is by releasing a photon. As the particle experiences an electronic transition from the excited state to the ground state, energy is released in the form a photon.
A Mathematical Model
For a simple mathematical model, a light source is in an excited, higher energy state with energy [math]\displaystyle{ E_2 }[/math], and it decays into a lower energy level with energy [math]\displaystyle{ E_1 }[/math]. This change in energy is expressed in the form of an emitted photon with the energy being calculated as the angular frequency [math]\displaystyle{ \omega }[/math] times the reduced Planck constant [math]\displaystyle{ \hbar = {{h}\over{2\pi}} = 1.054\ 571\ 800(13)\times 10^{-34}\text{ J⋅s} = 6.582\ 119\ 514(40)\times 10^{-16}\text{ eV⋅s} . }[/math]
Examples
A visual example of spontaneous photon emission is shown below.
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