Theory of the structure of the self-trapped exciton in quartz

Quartz is an insulator with an extremely wide band gap in the vacuum ultra-violet. However, under irradiation from high-energy electrons or X-rays, samples of high purity emit a luminescence band in the blue, corresponding to a Stokes shift of approximately 7 eV. This large Stokes shift has been ascribed to the self-trapping of an exciton in an otherwise perfect lattice owing to the distortion it induces; the authors review the evidence for this assignment, and describe electronic-structure calculations which reveal the structure of the distorted configuration and also explain various experimentally determined properties of the centre. The self-trapping process they postulate is a novel one as it is driven primarily by the electron component of the exciton.