Electron-hole pair excitations in semiconductors via energy transfer from an external sensitizer.

We consider the creation of electron-hole pairs in a semiconductor by energy transfer from an excited molecule near the surface. Direct and indirect band gap semiconductors are treated explicitly. At large sensitizer-semiconductor separations, d, our results are in agreement with previous results in a dielectric continuum limit. At small sensitizer- semiconductor separations we find deviations from the results valid in the large distance limit.