Numerical simulation of exciton dynamics in Cu2O at ultra low temperatures within a potential trap

TL;DR

This study theoretically investigates exciton relaxation in Cu2O at ultra low temperatures within a potential trap, revealing conditions for Bose-Einstein condensation and effects of various decay processes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of exciton relaxation dynamics including decay processes, highlighting conditions for BEC and the impact of non-thermal distributions at ultra low temperatures.

Findings

Excitons reach local equilibrium above 0.5K with the lattice.

Global exciton distribution remains at higher effective temperature.

Bose-Einstein condensation occurs at all temperatures when including finite lifetime and Auger decay.

Abstract

We have studied theoretically the relaxation behaviour of excitons in cuprous oxide (Cu2O) at ultra low temperatures when excitons are confined within a potential trap by solving numerically the Boltzmann equation. As relaxation processes, we have included in this paper deformation potential phonon scattering, radiative and non-radiative decay and Auger decay. The relaxation kinetics has been analysed for temperatures in the range between 0.3K and 5K. Under the action of deformation potential phonon scattering only, we find for temperatures above 0.5K that the excitons reach local equilibrium with the lattice i.e. that the effective local temperature is coming down to bath temperature, while below 0.5K a non-thermal energy distribution remains. Interestingly, for all temperatures the global spatial distribution of excitons does not reach the equilibrium distribution, but stays at a much higher effective temperature. If we include further a finite lifetime of the excitons and the two-particle Auger decay, we find that both the local and the global effective temperature are not coming down to bath temperature. In the first case we find a Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) to occur for all temperatures in the investigated range. Comparing our results with the thermal equilibrium case, we find that BEC occurs for a significantly higher number of excitons in the trap. This effect could be related to the higher global temperature, which requires an increased number of excitons within the trap to observe the BEC. In case of Auger decay, we do not find at any temperature a BEC due to the heating of the exciton gas.