Evidence for photon recycling in InP

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Abstract
An examination of low-temperature photoluminescence from chemically thinned InP illustrates the effect of multiple absorption and reemission of photons in bulk liquid-encapsulated Czochralski grown material. Luminescence spectra show that such photon recycling dramatically increases the nonequilibrium carrier density in the material and causes excess carrier distribution to penetrate tens of micrometers beneath the sample surface, an order of magnitude more than a diffusion length. Nonequilibrium carriers also penetrate deeper with increasing excitation levels as a consequence of more efficient radiative recombination. Although these effects have not been widely recognized, they have important consequences in the interpretation of luminescence spectra and the design of electronic and optical devices based on InP that are sensitive to minority-carrier diffusion lengths.