Electron-spin-resonance study of Sn+(5p1) centers of the laser-active-type structure in KCl:Sn2+ and analysis of the hyperfine structure.

Abstract

It is shown through an analysis of the electron-spin-resonance spectra that the ${\mathrm{Sn}}^{2+}$(5${\mathrm{s}}^{2}$) impurities in KCl can also give rise, after x irradiation above 220 K, to the so-called ${\mathrm{Sn}}^{+}$(1) centers of the laser-active-type structure. The essential core of this center is a substitutional ${\mathrm{Sn}}^{+}$(5${\mathrm{p}}^{1}$) ion strongly perturbed by an adjoining anion vacancy along the 〈001〉 direction. The observed orthorhombic symmetry, with the three crystallographic axes as the main axes, is induced by either one or two weakly perturbing cation vacancies in the neighborhood. Their exact positions are hard to establish and several possible, subtly differing, defect models are proposed. An analysis of the hyperfine interaction of all the ${\mathrm{np}}^{1}$ (n=4,5,6) centers in KCl is presented, and it is established that these atoms and ions possess large negative unpaired electron-spin densities at their nuclei when they are free or in crystal fields possessing inversion symmetry. The strong odd field component induced by the anion vacancy invariably adds, through s mixing, a substantial positive contribution to this spin density.