Spontaneous Emission Article Index for
Spontaneous
Website Links For
Spontaneous
 

Information About

Spontaneous Emission




If the atom is in the excited state with energy E_2, it may spontaneously decay into the ground state, with energy E_1, releasing the difference in energies between the two states as a photon. The photon will have Frequency
u and Energy h
u, given by:

:E_2 - E_1 = h
u,

where ''h'' is Planck's Constant . The Phase of the photon in spontaneous emission is random as is the direction the photon propagates in. This is not true for Stimulated Emission .

An energy level diagram illustrating the process is shown below:


Before emission After emission



O

-



-- E2