Ra. Hopfel et al., INTRABAND INVERSION DUE TO ULTRASHORT CARRIER LIFETIMES IN PROTON-BOMBARDED INP, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 53(19), 1996, pp. 12581-12584
We report the evidence of occupation inversion in time average within
the continuous band structure of the semiconductor InP. Ultrafast carr
ier trapping and recombination (tau approximate to 1x10(-13) s) as a c
onsequence of proton bombardment prevents the thermalization of optica
lly excited electron-hole pairs (n similar to 3x10(16) cm(-3)). Beyond
previous experimental observations of inverted time-averaged luminesc
ence spectra, we present experimental data at lower carrier concentrat
ions, which are in quantitative agreement with ensemble Monte Carlo si
mulations. Inverted electron and hole energy distributions are determi
ned quantitatively. We propose the application for a solid-state free-
electron laser.