Quantum-kinetic theory of hot luminescence from pulse-excited semiconductors

A theory of time-resolved luminescence from photoexcited semiconductors is presented. It combines quantum kinetics of hot-carrier relaxation and quantum theory of spontaneous emission. Model calculations show the "transfer" of photoluminescence from the initial signal at the pump frequency via subsequent phonon replicas until the buildup of luminescence at the excitonic resonance. Time-resolved photoluminescence is predicted to be a sensitive measure of electron-LO-phonon quantum kinetics and bottleneck effects.