Mathematical modeling of the cathodoluminescence of excitons generated by a narrow electron beam in a semiconductor material

A mathematical model of the cathodeluminescence of free excitons excited by a narrow electron beam in a semiconductor material is described and investigated. The model is based on an analytical solution to equations of the three-dimensional diffusion of excitons. It is shown that the model can be used to estimate the diffusivity of excitons from experimental time-of-flight measurements of samples coated with a lightproof mask with round apertures. The parameters of gallium nitride were used in the modeling.     

Thermal dissociation of excitons in a type-I GaAs/AlAs superlattice studied by time-resolved photoluminescence measurements

In order to investigate thermal properties of excitons, we have performed time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements for a type-I (GaAs)₁₅/(AlAs)₁₅ superlattice. At low temperatures, PL signals show ordinal exponential time decay, whereas at high temperatures, the PL shows power decay. Such change of PL signals is understood by considering thermal dissociation of exciton into account. At low temperatures, recombination of bound excitons generates PL which shows exponential decay. At temperatures higher than the exciton binding energy, correlation between electrons and holes disappears. Recombination of free excitons causes PL which decays by a power function. By means of the least-squares fitting, we evaluate the portion of bound excitons, recombination time of bound and free excitons as functions of temperatures.     

The kinetics of exciton photoluminescence in mercuric iodide

Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) of red mercuric iodide single crystal is measured at low temperatures and its two-photon luminescence is measured at room temperature. Sharp near band-gap luminescence is observed around 530 nm and was ascribed to radiative annihilation of free and bound excitons; the phonon replica of exciton luminescence are found between 533 and 540 nm at low temperatures. TRPL experiment reveals that near band-gap luminescence comprises fast and slow decay components and shows the different relaxation processes between free and bound exciton annihilation. Luminescence of bound excitons steeply lowers with increasing temperature and disappears about 40 K. A luminescence tail band is observed around 540 nm that is ascribed to defects in the anion sublattice. The temporal behavior of the tail band is described by rate equations very well. A broad luminescent band appears at 630 nm. The decay curves suggest that the luminescence is ascribed to the radiative recombination of donor-acceptor pairs and there are two kinds of mechanisms to control the decay. At room temperature, a luminescent band appears at the band-gap region, which shows the band-gap at room temperature is about 2.125 eV.     

Recombination dynamics of free and bound excitons in bulk GaN

We report new data on the transient photoluminescence behaviour of free and donor bound excitons in high quality bulk GaN material grown by HVPE. With 266 nm photoexcitation the no-phonon free exciton has a short decay time, about 100 ps at 2 K, assigned to nonradiative surface recombination. The LO replicas of the free exciton have a much longer decay at 2 K, about 1.4 ns, believed to be a lower bound for the bulk radiative lifetimes of the free excitons at 2 K. The donor bound exciton no-phonon lines exhibit a rather short (about 300 ps) nonexponential decay at 2 K, which appears to be dominated by a scattering process. The corresponding LO replicas and the two-electron transitions have a much longer decay. From the latter, the lower bound of the radiative lifetime of the O- and Si-bound excitons are 1800 ps and 1100 ps, respectively.     

正向电压激发下CdS MIS发光二极管中的自由激子发光

在44~77K温度范围内.在正向电压激发下的Cds MIS二极管中,观测到了发射0、1或2个纵光学(O、1LO或2LO)声子的自由激子的辐射衰减.根据激子的动能分布,讨论了1LO和2LO声子协助的伴线的形状和温度依赖.这里激子的有效温度等于晶格温度.     

Free exciton emission in forward-biased CdS MIS diodes

The radiative decay of free excitons with the emission of 0, 1, or 2LO phonons has been observed in electroluminescence in Cds MIS diodes operated in forward bias at temperatures in the range 40 – 77K. The line shapes and temperature dependence of the ILO and 2LO phonon assisted replicas are discussed in terms of the distribution of kinetic energy of the excitons with an effective temperature equal to that of the lattice.     

Influence of the coupled coherent and incoherent motion of triplet excitons on the ESR line shape in molecular crystals in the quasi-incoherent case

The exciton motion is described by the Hamiltonian of the Haken-Strobl-model, which contains a coherent and a fluctuating part, and which allows to represent the coupled coherent and incoherent motion of Frenkel excitons. The Hamiltonian of the spin motion contains the usual Zeeman term and fine structure terms of the various inequivalent molecules in the unit cell of the crystal. Starting from this Hamiltonian an exact infinite set of equations of motion for the correlation functions, describing the ESR line shape, is given. With the assumption that phase relations of the exciton motion decay rapidly, the number of this set of equations may be reduced considerably being now determined by the number of molecules within the unit cell and the dimension of the spin space under consideration. In this reduced set of equations the motion of the triplet excitons is described by an effective hopping rateΓ ₁ between the inequivalent molecules within the unit cell, containing also a contribution of the coherent interaction.     

Fluoreszenz lokalisierter Exzitonen in Anthrazenkristallen bei Anregung mit α-Teilchen

The time dependence of the scintillation light originating from free and lokalized excitons was analysed by a method described by Thomas and Bollinger. The results give information about the transfer of the excitation energy and show that the lifetime of lokalized excitons is reduced with decreasing temperature. This effect is compared with results which Tomura and Takahashi obtained for free excitons in anthracene crystals.     

Phonon and electronic nonradiative decay mechanisms of excitons in carbon nanotubes

We investigate theoretically the rates of nonradiative decay of excited semiconducting nanotubes by a variety of decay mechanisms and compare them with experimental findings. We find that the multiphonon decay (MPD) of free excitons is too slow to be responsible for the experimentally observed lifetimes. However, MPD lifetimes of localized excitons could be 2-3 orders of magnitude shorter. We also propose a new decay mechanism that relies on a finite doping of nanotubes and involves exciton decay into an optical phonon and an intraband electron-hole pair. The resulting lifetime is in the range of 5 to 100 ps, even for a moderate doping level.     

Picosecond luminescence of excitons localized by disorder in CdSxSe1−x

We have investigated in CdS_xSe_1−x and in pure CdSe the temporal evolution of the excitonic luminescence with 20 ps time resolution. In CdSe and in alloys with x < 0.15 the onset and decay of the luminescence can be described by time constants which are independent of the photon energy in the region of the free and bound excitons. In contrast, the time constants vary strongly over the main emission band for x > 0.15, which is attributed to the relaxation of excitons localized by compositional disorder. A simplified hopping model is presented which accounts for the experimental findings.     

Effect of heteroboundary spreading on the properties of exciton states in Zn(Cd)Se/ZnMgSSe quantum wells

Exciton states in Zn(Cd)Se/ZnMgSSe quantum wells with different diffusion spreading of interfaces are studied by optical spectroscopy methods. It is shown that the emission spectrum of quantum wells at low temperatures is determined by free excitons and bound excitons on neutral donors. The nonlinear dependence of the stationary photoluminescence intensity on the excitation power density and the biexponential luminescence decay are explained by the neutralization of charged defects upon photoexcitation of heterostructures. With the stationary illumination on, durable (about 40 min) reversible changes in the reflection coefficient near the exciton resonances of quantum wells are observed. It is shown that, along with the shift of exciton levels, the spreading of heteroboundaries leads to three effects: an increase in the excitonphonon interaction, an increase in the energy shift between the emission lines of free and bound excitons, and a decrease in the decay time of exciton luminescence in a broad temperature range. The main reasons for these effects are discussed.     

Ultrafast optical response in polydiacetylenes and polythiophenes

Ultrafast optical response in the films of poly(3-dodecylthiophene) (P3DT) and blue-and red-phase polydiacetylenes (PDA-4BCMU) has been investigated by femtosecond absorption and picosecond luminescence spectroscopies. Several nonlinear optical processes, i.e., hole burning, Raman gain, inverse Raman scattering, and induced-frequency shift, have been observed. The relaxation processes from photoexcited free excitons to self-trapped excitons (STEs) has been observed. The time constant is estimated as 140±40 fs in the blue-phase PDA-4BCMU and 100±50 fs in P3DT. The generated unthermalized STEs thermalize with the time constant of about 1 ps. The STEs in the blue-phase PDA-4BCMU decay exponentially with lifetime of 1.6±0.1 ps at 290 K and 2.1±0.2 ps at 10 K. The decay curves in the red-phase PDA-4BCMU and P3DT are not single exponential but can be fitted to biexponential functions with time constants of slightly shorter than 1 ps and about 5 ps. These two decay time constants correspond to relaxations to the ground state, respectively, from the free exciton and unthermalized STE and from the thermalized STE.     

Evidences for Auger recombination in electron-hole droplets (silicon)

The microwave absorption technique was used to measure the transient free carrier density following an electric injection in silicon at 4°K. The experiment agrees with the idea that droplets are obtained by free carrier condensation directly, without a preliminary formation of free excitons.¹ An Auger recombination process in droplets explains the observed kinetics; parameters are measured.     

Temperature-dependent luminescence dynamics for ZnO thin films

The paper presents the photoluminescence investigation of zinc oxide thin films. A high quality ZnO films fabricated by dip-coating (sol–gel) method were grown on quartz wafers. The films with different thickness (number of layers) were annealed at different temperatures after the preparation process. It was found that high quality, transparent ZnO thin films could be produced on quartz substrates at relatively low annealing temperature (450–550  $^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$ ). The dependence of the ZnO thin film quality was studied by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy techniques. Optical properties were investigated by classic and time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) measurements. Photoluminescence spectra allowed us to estimate energy of the free excitons, bond excitons and their longitudinal optical (LO) phonon replicas as a function of the annealing temperature. An innovative TRPL technique let us precisely measure the decay time of the free- and bond excitons’ in the real time. TRPL measurements as a function of temperature reveal a biexponential decay behavior with typical free/bound exciton decay constants of 970/5310 ps for the as-grown sample and 1380/5980 ps after annealing process. Presented spectra confirm high structural and optical quality of investigated films. We proved that the thermal treatment improve both optical and structural quality and extend the photoluminescence’s lifetimes. The obtained experimental results are important for identification of exciton’s peaks and their LO phonon replicas for the investigated ZnO films.     

Mid-gap luminescence and its excitation spectrum in trigonal selenium single crystals

Trigonal selenium shows in addition to the narrow “band-edge” luminescence due to the decay of free excitons a broad photoluminescence band in the i.r. region very similar to the luminescence in amorphous selenium. This mid-gap luminescence arises at low temperature from the excitation of a defect and at higher temperature from the trapping of free excitons, both processes involving considerable relaxation of the defect. The excitation spectra exclude photoluminescence via the excitation of free carriers.     

Picosecond decay kinetics of CdS luminescence studied by a streak camera

Using a picosecond laser and a streak camera we have observed the time dependence of the luminescence intensity of free excitons, bound excitons, and excitonic molecules in CdS. The observed kinetics show that the P band is due to bimolecular emission from free excitons and that bound excitons are generated from free excitons through monomelecular process and excitonic molecule through bimolecular process.     

Photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence of star-shaped ZnO nanostructures

Optical properties of star-shaped ZnO nanostructures were studied. The temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) was examined up to fourth-order longitudinal optical (LO) phonon assisted emissions of free excitons and confirmed that the nature of the room temperature PL in ZnO is 1-LO phonon assisted emission of free excitons. Low threshold ultraviolet stimulated emissions (SE) were obtained for our powder samples at room temperature. Picosecond time-resolved PL measurements detected a bi-exponential decay behavior which is strongly dependent on the excitation intensity: the slow decay term decreased faster than the fast decay term as the excitation intensity increased and the emission decays were dominated by the fast one. We also found that the emission decays decreased super-linearly before the appearance of the SE. This behavior may be used to deduce the threshold of SE or lasing.     

Effects of excitation spectral width on decay profile of weakly confined excitons

We report the effect due to a simultaneous excitation of several exciton states on the radiative decay profiles on the basis of the nonlocal response of weakly confined excitons in GaAs thin films. In the case of excitation of single exciton state, the transient grating signal has two decay components. The fast decay component comes from nonlocal response, and the long-lived component is attributed to free exciton decay. With an increase of excitation spectral width, the nonlocal component becomes small in comparison with the long-lived component, and disappears under irradiation of a femtosecond-pulse laser with broader spectral width. The transient grating spectra clearly indicates the contribution of the weakly confined excitons to the signal, and the exciton line width hardly changes by excitation spectral width. From these results, we concluded that the change of decay profile is attributed not to the many-body effect but to the effect of simultaneous excitation of several exciton states.     

Exciton localization behaviour in different well width undoped GaN/Al0.07Ga0.93N nanostructures

We report results from optical spectroscopy such as photoluminescence (PL) and time resolved photo-luminescence (TRPL) techniques from different well width MOCVD grown GaN/Al_0.07Ga_0.93N MQW samples. There is evidence of localization at low temperature in all samples. The decay time of all samples becomes non-exponential when the detection energy is increased with respect to the peak of the emission. Localization of carriers (excitons) is demonstrated by the “S-shape” dependences of the PL peak energies on the temperature. The time-resolved PL spectra of the 3-nm well multi quantum wells reveal that the spectral peak position shifts toward lower energies as the decay time increases and becomes red-shifted at longer decay times. There is a gradient in the PL decay time across the emission peak profile, so that the PL process at low temperatures is a free electron-localized hole transition.