Low-temperature intracenter relaxation times of shallow donors in germanium

Abstract

The relaxation times of localized states of antimony donors in unstrained and strained germanium uniaxially compressed along the [111] crystallographic direction are measured at cryogenic temperatures. The measurements are carried out in a single-wavelength pump–probe setup using radiation from the Novosibirsk free electron laser (NovoFEL). The relaxation times in unstrained crystals depend on the temperature and excitation photon energy. Measurements in strained crystals are carried out under stress bar S > 300, in which case the ground-state wavefunction is formed by states belonging to a single valley in the germanium conduction band. It is shown that the application of uniaxial strain leads to an increase in the relaxation time, which is explained by a decrease in the number of relaxation channels.