We report the observation in a-Si:H of a large thermal nonlinearity with a picosecond response time. The spectral dependence of the refractive and absorptive parts of this unusually fast thermal nonlinearity reveals that it arises from a picosecond nonradiative recombination of electrons and holes across the band gap. The optical and electronic processes that make this thermal nonlinearity possible and observable are discussed.

Date Published: 21 October 1992
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 1677, Ultrafast Lasers Probe Phenomena in Semiconductors and Superconductors, (21 October 1992); doi: 10.1117/12.137681

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1677:
Ultrafast Lasers Probe Phenomena in Semiconductors and Superconductors