Recombination-induced heating of free carriers in a semiconductor

Abstract

Recombination of externally excited (injected) charge carriers in a semiconductor can strongly change the temperature of the remaining carriers. The temperature is increased if the recombination rate decreases with energy and/or degenerate statistics applies. The normalized heating rate $\frac{[\frac{d({k}_{B}T)}{\mathrm{dt}}]}{{k}_{B}T\ensuremath{\cong}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}}$ (the recombination rate) will thus drastically reduce energy relaxation (cooling) of hot carriers at low temperatures. Cooling may occur if the recombination rate increases with energy.