Comments on “experimental evidence against the shell model of bound multiexciton complexes in silicon”

The recent claims of the refutation of Kirczenow's shell model of the bound multiexciton complexes are shown to be without foundation. It is shown that the shell model does in fact explain much of the piezo-spectroscopic data upon which those claims were, in part, based. Furthermore, the time-resolved luminescence data which appeared to convincingly rule out the shell model are shown to be in disagreement with the detailed time-resolved studies reported here. The present studies support the shell model, and a possible cause for the discrepancy between the two sets of data is suggested.