Mobility of Electrons in Silver Chloride at High Electric Field

Abstract

The mobility of electrons in specially purified AgCl crystals at high electric field has been investigated in order to clarify the scattering mechanism of fast electrons in ionic crystals. A fast-pulse technique was adopted to observe both the transient photoconductivity and the Hall mobility for photoelectrons. The experimental results show that the mobility of fast electrons at low temperatures is a decreasing function of electric field. An energy dissipation mechanism similar to the scattering due to the acoustical mode of lattice vibration is suggested for these fast electrons.