Relaxation oscillations of superluminescence in a semiconductor caused by recovery of the Fermi distribution of nonequilibrium electrons

Abstract

It is shown that modulation of the superluminescence intensity on a characteristic time scale on the order of a few picoseconds may occur in a semiconductor because of relaxation oscillations that result from the “healing” of local perturbations of the quasi-Fermi distribution of nonequilibrium electrons in energy space. The conditions for observing this effect in GaAs are estimated.