Nonlinear Absorption And Free Carrier Recombination In Direct Gap Semiconductors

Nonlinear absorption of Indium Antimonide (InSb) has been studied for many years, yet due to the complexity of absorption mechanisms and experimental difficulties in the infrared, this is still a subject of research. Although measurements have been made in the past, a consistent model that worked for both picosecond and nanosecond pulse widths had not been demonstrated. In this project, temperature dependent two-photon (2PA) and free carrier absorption (FCA) spectra of InSb are measured using femtosecond, picosecond, and nanosecond IR sources. The 2PA spectrum is measured at room temperature with femtosecond pulses, and the temperature dependence of 2PA and FCA is measured at 10.6µm using a nanosecond CO2 laser giving results consistent with the temperature dependent measurements at several wavelengths made with a tunable picosecond system. Measurements over this substantial range of pulse widths give results for FCA and 2PA consistent with a recent theoretical model for FCA. While the FCA cross section has been generally accepted in the past to be a constant for the temperatures and wavelengths used in this study, this model predicts that it varies significantly with temperature as well as wavelength. Additionally, the results for 2PA are consistent with the band gap scaling (Eg-3 ) predicted by a simple two parabolic band model. Using nanosecond pulses from a CO2 laser enables the recombination rates to be determined through nonlinear transmittance measurements. Three-photon absorption is also observed in InSb for photon energies below the 2PA band edge. Prior to this work, data on three-photon absorption (3PA) in semiconductors was scarce and most experiments were performed over narrow spectral ranges, v making comparison to the available theoretical models difficult. There was also disagreement between the theoretical results generated by different models, primarily in the spectral behavior. Therefore, we studied the band gap scaling and spectra of 3PA in several semiconductors by the Z-scan technique. The 3PA coefficient is found to vary as (Eg-7 ), as predicted by the scaling rules of simple two parabolic band models. The spectral behavior, which is considerably more complex than for 2PA, is found to agree well with a recently published theory based on a fourband model