14.

Latent Image Formation

Three basic types of silver halide, silver bromide, silver iodide and silver
chloride are used in photographic film and paper. In some applications, com-
binations, for example, silver-bromo-iodide, are used.
An emulsion layer in a photographic film is a suspension of silver halide
microcrystals. These crystals contain free (interstitial) silver ions Ag+ . When
photographic film is exposed to light, a solid state reaction – the formation of
a latent image – occurs in silver halide crystals that are struck by a sufficient
number of photons. When the film is developed, the latent image produces a
visible image. In this chapter we describe the modern theory of latent image
formation proposed by Gurney and Mott [4] and further developed by Byer
and Hamilton [1]; see also a more recent article by Tani [6].

14.1 The Physical Model

When photographic film is exposed to light, photons stream into the film and
some are absorbed by the silver halide grains. A photon absorbed by a grain
produces electron-hole pair: A free electron e and a positively charged ion
(e.g., a bromide ion Br+ ). The free electrons migrate within the crystal; they
may recombine with holes, or they may end up in one of the electron traps
located on the crystal’s boundary. These traps are small defects on the surface
of the crystal. Once a free electron enters a trap, it remains there for some
time. The number of traps in a grain is typically around 1500. The number
of absorbed photons varies with the exposure time, but on the average it is
around 100, so that most traps remain empty at any time.
When an electron is trapped, it may be joined by one of the interstitial
silver ions Ag+ to form a silver atom Ag, or it may escape the trap. A silver
atom in a trap may attract a second free electron, or it may decay into a
silver ion Ag+ and an electron e; the electron may leave the trap or again
attract a silver ion to form a silver atom.
A trap containing a silver atom and an electron may either lose the elec-
tron or attract another silver ion to form a second silver atom. In the same
way, a third and fourth and more silver atoms may join the latent image site.
Once two silver atoms are formed in a trap, the image site becomes stable,
namely, the silver atoms can no longer decay. Such an image site continues

A. Friedman et al, Mathematical Models in Photographic Science

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003
144 Part IV. Image Capture

Fig. 14.1. Schematics of latent image formation in silver halide microcrystals.

to grow: an electron that enters the trap cannot leave it and it can attracts a
silver ion; silver atoms in the trap do not decay into Ag+ and e. The above
process is summarized in Fig. 14.1
During development, a trap that contains a critical number nc of silver
atoms will catalize the photographic development; the exact value of nc re-
mains a matter of debate, but it is about 3, 4 or 5. The development of a
grain is simply an extension of the process we have just described with the
electrons provided by a reduced chemical species rather that by incident pho-
tons. The latent image site grows into chain of pure silver atoms, from the
crystal, whose image will be seen as a dark speck. Such a grain is said to be
mature or developable.
In the precipitation of silver halide grains several physical quantities can
be controlled to some extend: number of electron traps, electron trap radius,
holding time of electron in trap in nucleation phase, and position of traps in
grain. For this reason, simulating the nucleation and growth of latent image
sites is important for improving the quality of film.

14.2 Monte Carlo Simulation

To simplify the simulation we assume that the crystal is a box (see Fig. 14.2)
with square base of edge 2 μm and of height 0.2 μm. The black spots in
Fig. 14.2 indicate electron traps, located on the boundary of the grain (the
traps are also called “kink” sites). In the bulk of the grain there are also hole
traps, indicated by circles in Fig. 14.1. Such a trap can hold at most one hole.
To simulate the nucleation and growth of latent image sites we need to
make several assumptions. We assume that electrons undergo Brownian mo-
tion in the crystal grain, which we shall denote by D.