Abstract

Femtosecond spectroscopy has been exploited extensively for the investigation of relaxation dynamics in semiconductors and semiconductor heterostructures. Most of these studies deal with electronic dynamics, since the absorption changes are dominated by the lower density of states for electrons. However, for the design and performance analysis of optoelectronic devices, firm data on both electron and hole dynamics are required. Only a few experiments have been performed to give insight into the subpicosecond dynamics within the valence band dealing with the relaxation of hole distributions, which are excited with a certain excess energy.^1–5

© 1996 Optical Society of America