Electroreflection


The electroreflectance (ER) spectra of semiconductors in a strong electric field should contain an oscillating part connected, in according with
the Franz-Keldysh theory, with the modulation of the reduced density of states beyond the absorption edge. These oscillations are the result of interference between the wave functions of the electron and holes, which appear in interband optical transitions. We managed to reach a high degree of homogeneity of the electrical field at a depth at which the reflected light wave with the help of the recording the ER spectra under conditions nonequilibrium depletion in the space charge region in high-resistance germanium samples [IG Neizvestny, NN Ovsyuk, and MP Sinyukov. JETP Letters 24, 359 (1976)]. We have shown that the study of multioscillatory ER spectra is a new, efficient method for investigating mechanisms of scattering of charge carriers. The high sensitivity of this method has made it possible to determine for the first time the magnitude of anisotropy of the optical deformation potentials of holes [NN Ovsyuk. JETP Letters 38, 149 (1983)]. Singularities associated with the effect of size quantization on interband optical transitions in the region of the space charge of a semiconductor were observed for the first time in the electroreflectance spectra of the semiconductors [NN Ovsyuk and MP Sinyukov. JETP Letters 32, 342 (1980)]. We have proposed the independent method of determining the Luttinger band parameters of a semiconductor, which determine the dispersion law E(k) [OA Makarov, NN Ovsyuk, and MP Sinyukov. JETP 57, 1318 (1983)].