Energy relaxation by photoexcited carriers in the InAs/GaAs quantum-dot system: Bolometric detection of strong acoustic-phonon emission

Abstract

We have used bolometric detection to observe directly the phonons emitted by photoexcited carriers in the InAs/GaAs self-organized quantum-dot system. We find that about 74% of the energy lost by carriers in the InAs dots and wetting layer is via emission of low-frequency acoustic phonons and argue that this is facilitated by Auger scattering.