PHONON-ASSISTED MAGNETO ABSORPTION IN DIRECT-BAND SEMICONDUCTORS

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Abstract
In polar semiconductors with direct energy gaps, optical absorption is observed for photons with energies well below that corresponding to the energy gap. It is now established that the absorption tail (Urbach's law) is due to indirect phonon-assisted optical transitions involving the absorption of one or more optical phonons of energy kθ. In the present paper we have considered the effect of a magnetic field on the optical absorption in that region of the Urbach tail where second-order processes are dominant. In contrast to the normal direct interband absorption coefficient, the absorption reflects the Landau level structure of valence band and conduction band separately. A discussion is given of the conditions under which such an effect should be observable.