2020/10/22 by V. Ya. Aleshkin, G. Alymov, Aleshkin, V. Ya. +13
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Semiconductor Detectors and Materials #Optical properties and cooling technologies in crystalline materials #Semiconductor Quantum Structures and Devices #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2010.11736
12 pages and 9 figures
arxiv created 2020/10/22 · arxiv updated 2020/10/23
We present detailed theoretical and experimental studies of Auger recombination in narrow-gap mercury cadmium telluride quantum wells (HgCdTe QWs). We calculate the Auger recombination probabilities as functions of non-equilibrium carrier density, temperature and composition of quantum wells taking into account the complex band dispersions and wave functions of the structures. Our theory is validated by comparison with measured kinetics of photoconductivity relaxation in QW with band gap of 76 meV at a temperature of 77 K. We find good agreement of theory and experiment using a single fitting parameter: the initial density of non-equilibrium carriers. The model is further used to optimize the composition of QWs and find the most suitable conditions for far-infrared lasing. Particularly, for band gap of 40 meV (lasing wavelength λ=31 μm) the lasing is favored in QWs with 6.5% cadmium fraction. We also find that at very large non-equilibrium carrier densities, the main recombination channel is associated with emission of two-dimensional plasmons and not with Auger process