SCATTERING OF SCREENED EXCITONS BY FREE-CARRIERS IN SEMICONDUCTING QUANTUM WELL STRUCTURES

The theoretical treatment of the scattering of excitons by free electrons and holes in a two-dimensional semiconducting quantum-well system is extended to take into account screening by the free carriers. The scattering cross sections are calculated using the Born approximation for elastic scattering of the excitons by the free carriers. For the heavy-hole exciton, the screening by the free carriers reduces the cross section for free-carrier exciton scattering for all values of the energy of relative motion of the free carriers and the excitors. For the light-hole exciton, however, screening can actually lead to an enhancement of the scattering cross section for low values of the energy of relative motion when the density of free carriers is high. This is because screening not only reduces the interaction between the free carriers and the exciton, but also decreases the binding of the exciton, leading to a larger effective radius of the exciton. The results for the scattering cross sections are then applied to calculate the contribution to the exciton linewidth due to elastic scattering of the excitons by free carriers. It is found that this contribution to the exciton linewidth is decreased below its value in the absence of screening for both the heavy- and light-hole excitons.