Estimating the Band Gap of a Solid from Diffuse

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PbCrO4 is yellow, not white. It is possible, that if your sample is not phase pure, two slopes will appear in the data similar to that shown above. SrCrO4. 0. 10. 20.
Estimating the Band Gap of a Solid from Diffuse Reflectance Data When calculating, the band gap, we are interested in where the material starts to absorb. If you remember looking at molecular orbitals in class, The band gap is the minimum energy needed for an electron to be excited from the top of the valence band to the bottom the conduction band. The band gap is measured using a UV-Vis spectrometer as we did in class. Here is a simple example of how to calculate the band gap from the data that you took: Starting in the UV region (high wavelengths), your sample should (but may not) reflect 100% of the light coming from the source. Once that minimum energy is reached (the band gap energy), then the sample can start absorbing light and electrons are excited from the valence band to the conduction band. When the sample starts absorbing there is a large slope in the graph. The first thing you do is draw a line of best fit along the slope of the line as shown below: SrCrO4 100

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The point where the line is tangent to the curve, here at the 50% reflectance mark is where the band gap is. Essentially, you are looking at the midpoint of the slope of your data. See below. The band gap is indicated by the star. Estimate the wavelength where

this point is and convert the wavelength in nm to energy in eV. You only need to report the band gap energy (eV) to one decimal place. SrCrO4 100

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Next, we will do an example with data that is a little bit messier. In this example, it is best to examine the much steeper slope as shown below. The midpoint of the line is used as the wavelength of the band gap. PbCrO4 100

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. If you think about it, this makes sense because if you used the less steep slope, than the midpoint of the line would be in the UV range of light, which isn’t possible because PbCrO4 is yellow, not white. It is possible, that if your sample is not phase pure, two slopes will appear in the data similar to that shown above.

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