Influence of Pb2+ ions on the ionic conductivity and the space charge characteristics of cubic silver halide microcrystals

Abstract

A study of the ionic conductivity and the space charge characteristics of cubic silverhalide microcrystals as a function of Pb2+ adsorption or incorporation, is presented. At a fixed pAg the ionic conductivity of the AgBr (100) microcrystals decreases with a factor ten, when about 3000 mol ppm Pb2+/Ag+ are adsorbed on the surface. No change in the activation energy is observed. For the AgBr(100) microcrystals with Pb2+ incorporated the ionic conductivity is not altered. The results are interpreted basing on earlier reported conclusions that cubic AgBr microcrystals possess an almost unlimited number of available surface sites for Frenkel defect generation. The influence on the latent image formation is discussed.