Rapid luminescence saturation of the Mn2+ 3d shell in the Cd1-xMnxTe dilute magnetic semiconductor with a high manganese concentration

The dependence of manganese-ion intracenter-luminescence intensity on optical excitation level has been studied in the Cd1-xMnxTe dilute magnetic semiconductor with 0.4<x<0.7. It is shown that the intracenter luminescence saturates due to effective nonlinear quenching already at low excitation levels. Mechanisms are proposed which can provide nonlinear quenching and offer a qualitative explanation for the temperature dependence of the luminescence saturation in samples with different manganese concentrations. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1063-7834(99)01201-0].