It is demonstrated that free-carrier plasmons, being well defined collective excitations of the electron gas in the range of small wave vectors, can serve as a sensitive tool to investigate the optical processes related to the small momentum transfers. As an example the system HgSe:Fe is analysed both experimentally and theoretically. It is well known that the excitation of the free-carrier plasma in the light absorption process is possible only in the presence of defects breaking the translational invariance of the system. Due to the overall momentum conservation requirement there must exist a momentum source to make the photon absorption *This work is supported in part by CPBP 01.06.(141)
The far-infrared reflectivity spectrum of HgCdTe measured at 77 K has been studied in the region 40–220 cm−1. A new measurement has been proposed to investigate the relaxation process of excess carriers, it offers a new way of noncontact and nondestructive characterization of materials. There are no requirements for the shape, nor for the thickness of sample.
A steep plasma edge in infrared reflectivity spectra of Hg1−xCdxTe and HgSe:Fe has been observed. It is predicted that the edge is sensitive to the variation of carrier concentration, which indicates the possibility of developing a fast light-controlled switch for infrared radiation as well as a new approach of infrared modulation and detection. The modulation gain in power and detectivity limited by the generation-recombination process has been calculated and compared with the photoconductive counterpart.
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