3 ms·
> How does the wave poking some electron to a higher state remember the temperature of its source? The black-body spectrum of the source determines the amount
by eigenket 2y ago
> How does the wave poking some electron to a higher state remember the temperature of its source?
The black-body spectrum of the source determines the amount of waves it outputs at each frequency, and in turn is determined by the temperature.
- robocat 2y agoI think semiconductors (such as most solar cells) do not act as ideal black bodies. Thermal excitation (what temperature required?) can move electrons into the conduction band and when the electron relaxes it emits a photon corresponding to the band gap. I looked for a good article, but didn't find anything. There was one relevant comment in the first article I skimmed that said "semiconductors do not behave remotely close to a blackbody": sounds authoritative but the comment was on stack-overflow so hard to judge its correctness!