Optical Processes In Semiconductors

Comprehensive text and reference covers all phenomena involving light in semiconductors, emphasizing modern applications in semiconductor lasers, electroluminescence, photodetectors, photoconductors, photoemitters, polarization effects, absorption spectroscopy, more. Numerous problems. 339 illustrations.

Semiconductor optoelectronic devices are at the heart of all information generation and processing systems and are likely to be essential components of future optical computers. With more emphasis on optoelectronics and photonics in graduate programmes in physics and engineering, there is aneed for a text providing a basic understanding of the important physical phenomena involved. Such a training is necessary for the design, optimization, and search for new materials, devices, and application areas. This book provides a simple quantum mechanical theory of important optical processes,i.e. band-to-band, intersubband, and excitonic absorption and recombination in bulk, quantum wells, wires, dots, superlattices, and strained layers including electro-optic effects. The classical theory of absorption, quantization of radiation, and band picture based on k.p perturbation has beenincluded to provide the necessary background. Prerequisites for the book are a knowledge of quantum mechanics and solid state theory. Problems have been set at the end of each chapter, some of which may guide the reader to study processes not covered in the book. The application areas of thephenomena are also indicated.

The first advanced textbook to provide a useful introduction in a brief, coherent and comprehensive way, with a focus on the fundamentals. After having read this book, students will be prepared to understand any of the many multi-authored books available in this field that discuss a particular aspect in more detail, and should also benefit from any of the textbooks in photochemistry or spectroscopy that concentrate on a particular mechanism. Based on a successful and well-proven lecture course given by one of the authors for many years, the book is clearly structured into four sections: electronic structure of organic semiconductors, charged and excited states in organic semiconductors, electronic and optical properties of organic semiconductors, and fundamentals of organic semiconductor devices.

An international team of experts describes the optical and electronic properties of semiconductors and semiconductor nanostructures at picosecond and femtosecond time scales. The contributions cover the latest research on a wide range of topics. In particular they include novel experimental techniques for studying and characterizing nanostructure materials. The contributions are written in a tutorial way so that not only researchers in the field but also researchers and graduate students outside the field can benefit.

A unifying element that links the apparently diverse phenomena observed in optical processes is the dielectric dispersion of matter. It describes the response of matter to incoming electromagnetic waves and charged particles, and thus predicts their behavior in the self-induced field of matter, known as polariton and polaron effects. The energies of phonon, exciton and plasmon, quanta of collective motions of charged particles constituting the matter, are also governed by dielectric dispersion. Since the latter is a functional of the former, one can derive useful relations for their self-consistency. Nonlinear response to laser light inclusive of multiphoton processes, and excitation of atomic inner shells by synchrotron radiation, are also described. Within the configuration coordinate model, photo-induced lattice relaxation and chemical reaction are described equally to both ground and relaxed excited states, to provide a novel and global perspective on structural phase transitions and the nature of interatomic bonds. This book was first published in 2003.

The dielectric microstructures act as ultrahigh Q factors optical cavities, which modify the spontaneous emission rates and alter the spatial distributions of the input and output radiation. The editors have selected leading scientists who have made seminal contributions in different aspects of optical processes in microcavities. Every attempt has been made to unify the underlying physics pertaining to microcavities of various shapes. This book begins with a chapter on the role of microcavity modes with additional chapters on how these microcavity modes affect the spontaneous and stimulated emission rates, enhance nonlinear optical processes, used in cavity-QED and chemical physics experiments, aid in single-molecule detection, influence the design of microdisk semiconductor lasers, and how deformed cavities can be treated with classical chaos theory.

This book sets out the fundamental quantum processes that are important in the physics and technology of semiconductors. The fifth edition includes three new chapters that expand the coverage of semiconductor physics relevant to its accompanying technology.

This book introduces the basic theoretical concepts required for the analysis of the optical response of semiconductor systems in the coherent regime. It is the most instructive textbook on the theory and optical effects of semiconductors. The entire presentation is based on a one-dimensional tight-binding model. Starting with discrete-level systems, increasing complexity is added gradually to the model by including band-structure and many-particle interaction. Various linear and nonlinear optical spectra and temporal phenomena are studied. The analysis of many-body effects in nonlinear optical phenomena covers a major part of the book.

The characterization of epitaxial layers and their surfaces has benefitted a lot from the enormous progress of optical analysis techniques during the last decade. In particular, the dramatic improvement of the structural quality of semiconductor epilayers and heterostructures results to a great deal from the level of sophistication achieved with such analysis techniques. First of all, optical techniques are nondestructive and their sensitivity has been improved to such an extent that nowadays the epilayer analysis can be performed on layers with thicknesses on the atomic scale. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal resolution have been pushed to such limits that real time observation of surface processes during epitaxial growth is possible with techniques like reflectance difference spectroscopy. Of course, optical spectroscopies complement techniques based on the inter action of electrons with matter, but whereas the latter usually require high or ultrahigh vacuum conditions, the former ones can be applied in different environments as well. This advantage could turn out extremely important for a rather technological point of view, i.e. for the surveillance of modern semiconductor processes. Despite the large potential of techniques based on the interaction of electromagnetic waves with surfaces and epilayers, optical techniques are apparently moving only slowly into this area of technology. One reason for this might be that some prejudices still exist regarding their sensitivity.