Chapter 6 Time-Resolved Measurements During Pulsed Laser Irradiation of Silicon

Publisher Summary Time-resolved optical measurements provide a direct means for studying the process of the formation of dense electron-hole plasma in semiconductors and for determining the time scale for the transfer of energy from photoexcited carriers to the crystal lattice. Time-resolved optical measurements lead to the melting of the lattice later and for sufficiently high laser fluencies, as photons are absorbed in direct or indirect transitions across the energy bandgap. This chapter reports the results of an experiment involving the selection of the time-resolved measurements performed during pulsed-laser irradiation. The chapter emphasizes those experimental results that can be directly compared to the predictions of model calculations to provide a complete picture of the current state of agreement between experiments and calculations.