Say What? Physics

Exciton

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ON THE MOVE  An exciton, illustrated here, transfers energy to an electron.

Stef Simmons, UCL Mathematical and Physical Sciences/Flickr (CC-BY 2.0)

By Ashley Yeager

- More than 2 years ago

Getting excited can kick a person’s energy to a higher level. At the nanoscale, strange almost-particles called excitons do the same trick.

In a crystal, thin film or even some liquids, an incoming particle of light can slam into an electron, bumping it to a higher energy level and leaving a hole at the energy level where the particle had been.