Stronger femtosecond excitation causes slower electron-phonon coupling in silicon

Electron-hole pairs in semiconductors are essential for solar cells and fast electronic circuitry, but the competition between carrier transport and relaxation into heat limits the efficiency and speed. Here we use ultrafast electron diffraction with terahertz pulse compression to measure the electron-phonon decay rate in single-crystal silicon as a function of laser excitation strength. We find that the excited electrons relax slower into phonons for higher carrier densities. The electron-phonon scattering rate changes in a nonlinear way from 400 fs at <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:mrow><a:mo>∼</a:mo><a:mn>2</a:mn><a:mo>×</a:mo><a:msup><a:mrow><a:mn>10</a:mn></a:mrow><a:mn>20</a:mn></a:msup><a:mo>/</a:mo><a:mi mathvariant="normal">c</a:mi><a:msup><a:mrow><a:mi mathvariant="normal">m</a:mi></a:mrow><a:mn>3</a:mn></a:msup></a:mrow></a:math> to 1.2 ps at <d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><d:mrow><d:mo>∼</d:mo><d:mn>4</d:mn><d:mo>×</d:mo><d:msup><d:mrow><d:mn>10</d:mn></d:mrow><d:mn>20</d:mn></d:msup><d:mo>/</d:mo><d:mi mathvariant="normal">c</d:mi><d:msup><d:mrow><d:mi mathvariant="normal">m</d:mi></d:mrow><d:mn>3</d:mn></d:msup></d:mrow></d:math>. These results indicate that a hot electron gas quenches the scattering into phonons in a temperature-dependent way. Ultrafast electronic circuitry of silicon should therefore work faster and provide higher bandwidths at lower carrier densities.