{
  "id": "2001.10263",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2020-01-28T11:10:00.000Z",
  "updated": "2020-01-28T11:10:00.000Z",
  "title": "Impact ionization induced by terahertz radiation in HgTe quantum wells of critical thickness",
  "authors": [
    "S. Hubmann",
    "G. V. Budkin",
    "M. Urban",
    "V. V. Bel'kov",
    "A. P. ~Dmitriev",
    "J. Ziegler",
    "D. A. Kozlov",
    "N. N. Mikhailov",
    "S. A. Dvoretsky",
    "Z. D. Kvon",
    "D. Weiss",
    "S. D. Ganichev"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "cond-mat.mes-hall"
  ],
  "abstract": "We report on the observation of terahertz (THz) radiation induced band-to-band impact ionization in \\HgTe quantum well (QW) structures of critical thickness, which are characterized by a nearly linear energy dispersion. The THz electric field drives the carriers initializing electron-hole pair generation. The carrier multiplication is observed for photon energies less than the energy gap under the condition that the product of the radiation angular frequency $\\omega$ and momentum relaxation time $\\tau_{\\text l}$ larger than unity. In this case, the charge carriers acquire high energies solely because of collisions in the presence of a high-frequency electric field. The developed microscopic theory shows that the probability of the light impact ionization is proportional to $\\exp(-E_0^2/E^2)$, with the radiation electric field amplitude $E$ and the characteristic field parameter $E_0$. As observed in experiment, it exhibits a strong frequency dependence for $\\omega \\tau \\gg 1$ characterized by the characteristic field $E_0$ linearly increasing with the radiation frequency $\\omega$.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2020-01-28T11:10:00.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "hgte quantum wells",
      "critical thickness",
      "terahertz radiation",
      "initializing electron-hole pair generation",
      "induced band-to-band impact ionization"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 0,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable"
    }
  }
}