Carrier mobility in a polar semiconductor measured by an optical pump-probe technique

Abstract

Ultrafast dephasing of the plasmonlike longitudinal optical phonon-plasmon coupled (LOPC) mode in highly doped n-GaAs has been investigated by using a femtosecond optical pump-probe technique with 40 THz bandwidth as a function of photodoping levels. The direct measurement of plasmon damping with the help of a wavelet analysis enables us to extract carrier (electron) mobility, which decreases with increasing the photodoping levels. It is found that the mobility is suppressed at high photodoping levels due to electron-hole scattering, while it is enhanced near a critical density, being plausibly attributed to the strong coherent coupling of the LO phonon with the plasmon. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.