Chapter 2 Minority-Carrier Lifetime in III–V Semiconductors

Publisher Summary This chapter emphasizes on the development of mathematical tools for analyzing time-resolved photoluminescence data. The chapter presents the development of these tools and provides an abbreviated discussion of the primary recombination mechanisms that are important in III-V minority-carrier physics. The chapter discusses the important aspects of light emission. It focuses on the PL decay analysis of various device structures and on high-injection effects. The present preferred method of lifetime measurement is time-resolved photoluminescence. However, this method has not proven to be applicable to weak light emitters and the smaller-bandgap materials. The latter problem is instrument-related and may well be solved by new technology in the near future. The chapter highlights the experimental data on lifetime in GaAs DH structures and reviews present data related to minority-carrier lifetime in AI x Ga 1- x As.

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