Abstract
A quantum mechanical theory of free-carrier absorption in semiconductors with a nonparabolic conduction band is developed. The absorption due to scattering on ionized impurities is considered in zero-gap Cd x Hg 1− x Te taking into account both single particle and collective excitations. Because of the lack of the plasmon damping for the linear conduction band, the contribution to the absorption coefficient related to the free-carrier plasmon generation extends over a wide spectral region. It is shown that the strong angular dependence of the optical matrix element as well as of the electron-impurity scattering amplitude lead to significant reduction of the total absorption coefficient with respect to a typical wide-gap semiconductor. The infrared measurements taken on a few highly doped, n-type Cd x Hg 1− x Te samples with a composition close to x = 0.2 confirmed the theoretical predictions.
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