Highly sensitive magneto-optical techniques have been used to investigate weak linear and nonlinear optical absorption mechanisms in p- and n-type InSb. As a result, new absorption processes involving both impurities and free carriers have been identified and studied in detail. For p-InSb, magneto-optical spectra has been obtained over a wide range of temperatures and photon energies. The spectra obtained at higher sample temperatures are seen to result from combined-resonance transitions of free holes between heavy-and light-hole Landau levels, while bound-hole transitions between ground heavy-hole-like and excited light-hole-like acceptor states are observed at lower temperatures. Analysis of the combined-resonance data along with extensive intra-conduction band and two-photon interband data using a modified Pidgeon and Brown 8X8 energy band model has allowed the determination of a single set of band parameters for InSb that quantitatively describes these different sets of data. In addition, a ground state binding energy of 8.1 meV for Cd acceptors and 42.5 meV for Au acceptors has been extracted from the analysis of the bound-hole spectra. For n-lnSb, photo-Hall techniques have been developed and used to study both resonant impurity and two-photon magneto-absorption (TPMA) processes in detail. As a result, LO-phonon-assisted impurity cyclotron resonance harmonic (LOICRH) transitions from …

Several methods have been developed and used to characterize the narrow gap semiconductors Hg^_xCdxTe (HgCdTe) (0.20<x<0.32) and InSb both in the presence of CO2 laser radiation and in the dark. The results have allowed the determination of certain band parameters including the fundamental energy bandgap Eg which is directly related to x, the mole fraction of Cd. In the dark, characterization of several different samples of HgCdTe and InSb were carried out by analyzing the temperature dependence of the Hall coefficient and the magnetic field positions of the magnetophonon extrema from which their x-values were determined. The quality of the magnetophonon spectra is also shown to be related to the inhomogeneity Ax of the HgCdTe samples. One-photon magneto-absorption (OPMA) spectra have been obtained for x ~ 0.2 samples of p-HgCdTe thin films and n-HgCdTe bulk samples. Analysis of the OPMA transition energies allows the x-value to be determined to within « ±0.001. A method is also discussed which can be used to estimate the sample inhomogeneity Ax. Nonlinear optical properties of semiconductors are not only scientifically interesting to study, but are also proving to be technologically important as various nonlinear optical devices are being developed. One of the most valuable …