activated atom

(redirected from excited atom)

ac·ti·vat·ed at·om

an atom possessing supernormal energy as a result of energy inputs.
See also: excited state.
Synonym(s): excited atom
References in periodicals archive ?
12], where a photon of exactly the correct amount of energy passes an excited atom forcing an electron to drop down energy levels and in the process emitting a photon with the same phase, wavelength, frequency and direction of the passing photon.
Multiplying the lifetime of the excited atom by the speed of light gives an answer of around a meter.
Are humans simply the sum of all the atoms (and the related excited atom quantum states) that compose them?
In 2000, atomic physicist Chris Greene of JILA and the University of Colorado at Boulder and colleagues predicted the existence of a Rydberg molecule made up of an excited atom and a neutral atom.
Several experiments have shown that the energy and lifetime of an excited atom are strongly modified inside a metallic cavity, but as yet there have been no such measurements in dielectric cavities.
The next excited atom traversing the cavity interacts with this photon, emitting a photon of its own, and so on.
Physicists generally regard the emission of light by an excited atom as a random process.
Such a structure would prevent an excited atom embedded within it from spontaneously emitting a photon, in effect greatly prolonging the time an atom could spend in an excited state.
The excited atom immediately reemits some light, and because of the superposition or linkage, the wavelengths that each of the two states might emit separately are combined in an interference or beat signal like two sound waves beating together.
The excited atoms in the vapor carry telltale signatures of their chemical origins, which can be captured and identified by using spectroscopy.
Astronomers struggled to find a good term for the object from its discovery in 1974 until 1982, when, inspired by atomic physicists' nomenclature for excited atoms (He*, Fe*, etc.
Depending on the system and on the types of gases used, plasma can contain certain excited atoms and molecules, ionized gases, radicals and sometimes free electrons.