CARRIER-CARRIER INTERACTIONS IN SEMICONDUCTOR PLASMAS.

Relatively dense electron-hole plasmas can be produced in semiconductors by femtosecond pulses of laser radiation. The decay of the energy from the carriers to the lattice is a property of the many-body interactions and the carrier-phonon interactions. The authors discuss the role of the Coulomb potential between the carriers in affecting this decay and in the screening process. It is found in high-density plasmas that the energy decay from the electrons to the lattice is heavily screened. The major channel for this decay is through the electron-hole interaction to the holes, where it decays to the lattice through the emission of transverse optical phonons. Screening of the dense plasma is complicated because of the far-from-equilibrium state of the carriers during the energy decay process.