Slit-Width Error in the Measurement of Absorption Constants

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Abstract
Interest in the optical properties of semiconductors and insulators inside the region of the fundamental absorption edge required the development of instrumentation and material suitable for these investigations. The chief characteristic of these measurements is a very large absorption constant that varies rapidly with wavelength. Because of this, and the requirement that a finite slit be used, such measurements can be subject to large errors. These arise because of transmission in the tails of the slit distribution while, at the wavelength under observation, the sample is relatively opaque. The current work investigates the nature of the distribution of energy emergent from the slit of an optical monochromator and finds that this is close to being Gaussian. The information is used to find the true transmission by the method of Hardy and Young and two specific examples are given as an illustration.

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