Effective masses of the 4p excitons in solid Kr

Abstract

We have measured the momentum dependent electron energy loss spectrum of solid Kr and evaluated the effective masses of the excitons for the first two principal quantum numbers of each excitonic series. We find that n = 1 excitons disperse more slowly than the n = 2 excitons of the same series indicating greater effective masses for n = 1 excitons than for n = 2 excitons within the effective mass model. For intermediate wave vectors, where the splitting of the heavy hole and light hole bands should be observable, we find no evidence for a splitting in the two bands, in conflict with band structure calculations.