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The energy of an electron is determined by its orbit around the atom, The n = 0 orbit, commonly referred to as the ground state, has the lowest energy of all states in the system. In atomic physics and chemistry , an atomic electron transition (also called an atomic transition, quantum jump, or quantum leap) is an electron changing from one ...
The lifetime of a system in an excited state is usually short: spontaneous or induced emission of a quantum of energy (such as a photon or a phonon) usually occurs shortly after the system is promoted to the excited state, returning the system to a state with lower energy (a less excited state or the ground state). This return to a lower energy ...
Within a semiconductor crystal lattice, thermal excitation is a process where lattice vibrations provide enough energy to transfer electrons to a higher energy band such as a more energetic sublevel or energy level. [3] When an excited electron falls back to a state of lower energy, it undergoes electron relaxation (deexcitation [4]).
The energy change associated with this transition provides information on the structure of the molecule and determines many of its properties, such as colour. The relationship between the energy involved in the electronic transition and the frequency of radiation is given by Planck's relation .
In thermodynamics, a parameter representing the state of disorder of a system at the atomic, ionic, or molecular level; the greater the disorder the higher the entropy. [6] A measure of disorder in the universe or of the unavailability of the energy in a system to do work. [7] Entropy and disorder also have associations with equilibrium. [8]
Any superposition (linear combination) of energy states is also a quantum state, but such states change with time and do not have well-defined energies. A measurement of the energy results in the collapse of the wavefunction, which results in a new state that consists of just a single energy state.
The traditional qualitative description of entropy is that it refers to changes in the state of the system and is a measure of "molecular disorder" and the amount of wasted energy in a dynamical energy transformation from one state or form to another.
Spontaneous emission is the process in which a quantum mechanical system (such as a molecule, an atom or a subatomic particle) transits from an excited energy state to a lower energy state (e.g., its ground state) and emits a quantized amount of energy in the form of a photon. Spontaneous emission is ultimately responsible for most of the light ...