Relaxation processes upon photoexcitation of semiconductor CdF2 by laser pulses

The microwave-cavity-based technique is used to study the processes of photoionization of electrons from donor levels to the conduction band in semiconductor CdF2 crystals doped with Y, In, or Ga. The samples were excited by periodic pulses of Nd-laser (λ = 1.06 μm, pulse width ∼10 ns) in the temperature range 6–77 K. The transient processes were detected in the absorption and dispersion modes related to variation of the imaginary and real parts of the complex permittivity ɛ1 − iɛ2 induced by the light pulses. The observed signals consisted of short peak at t ∼ 0, approximately 40–70 ns in length, and a long tail with a duration of ∼100 ms. The short peak is likely to be related to the stay of the photoexcited carriers in the conduction band, while the long tail is associated with the processes of excitation relaxation after the electrons coming back to the donor levels of the impurity band. The weak temperature dependence of the width of the peak at t ∼ 0 is explained by the tunneling mechanism of relaxation of electrons through the energy (or, probably, spatial) barrier separating the bound and free states of the carriers in the semiconductor CdF2.