Heat- and light-induced transformations of Yb trapping sites in an Ar matrix

The low-lying electronic states of Yb isolated in a solid Ar matrix grown at 4.2 K are characterized through absorption and emission spectroscopy. Yb atoms are found to occupy three distinct thermally stable trapping sites labeled "red," "blue," and "violet" according to the relative positions of the absorption features they produce. Classical simulations of the site structure and relative stability broadly reproduced the experimentally observed matrix-induced frequency shifts and thus identified the red, blue, and violet sites as due to respective single substitutional (ss), tetravacancy (Tv), and hexavacancy (Hv) occupation. Prolonged excitation of the (1)S → (1)P transition was found to transfer the Yb population from hv sites into Tv and ss sites. The process showed reversibility in that annealing to 24 K predominantly transferred the Tv population back into Hv sites. Population kinetics were used to deduce the effective rate parameters for the site transformation processes. Experimental observations indicate that the blue and violet sites lie close in energy, whereas the red one is much less stable. Classical simulations identify the blue site as the most stable one.