The role of optical phonons in electrons heating by IR radiation in Ge

Abstract

An expression for the coefficient of light absorption by “hot” electrons in many-valley semiconductors for carrier scattering by nonpolar optical phonons in dependence on the carrier temperature and electron concentration in each valley has been obtained. It was shown that taking into account the contribution of such scattering into absorption of a CO₂ laser radiation enables to achieve a quantitative agreement between the calculated and experimental values for the intervalley redistribution of electrons due to heating carriers by the light wave in Ge at 300 and 77 K.