Carrier excitation by atomic collisions at semiconductor surfaces

We have furthered our understanding of the collisional excitation of carriers at semiconductor surfaces due to hyperthermal neutral-atom scattering, with additional experiments and analyses. We compare the excitation efficiency of Xe to Kr over a range of energies and angles for the InP(100) surface. We extract absolute collisional excitation probabilities using optical carrier excitation to determine carrier recombination rates. We compare excitations on InP(100) to InP(110). The results confirm, on a more quantitative basis, the concept of a rapid equilibration of electronic excitations to a transient local lattice excitation in the vicinity of the atomic impact.