Optical heating in semiconductors

Abstract

A theory for optical heating in semiconductors has been formulated in terms of the coupled diffusion equations for heat and excess carrier density. The solution for the temperature increase near the surface of the material is given by a general expression which is applicable to a broad range of semiconductors and excitation conditions. The present theory is considerably more comprehensive than previous closed-form results in that the optical and transport properties of the material are allowed to be arbitrary functions of photoexcited-carrier density and temperature.