Magneto-optical properties of interstitial hydrogen atoms in alkali halides

Abstract

Abstract Measurements have been made of both Faraday rotation and magnetic circular dichroism of ultraviolet absorption bands of interstitial hydrogen atoms (U2 centres) in alkali halides. Large temperature dependent magneto-optical effects have been observed for the U2 absorption bands which indicate large spin-orbit coupling in the excited states of the transitions. These effects suggest that the excited states are composed primarily of lattice ion wavefunctions. The results are explained on the basis of an l.c.a.o. model for incomplete charge–transfer transitions. Values for parameters of the model determined from our experiments and from earlier band structure calculations are in reasonable agreement.