The theory for hot-electron relaxation in bulk III-V semiconductors is developed within a many-body formalism by considering energy loss to optical and acoustic phonons, with special emphasis on the influence of the plasmon-phonon coupling phenomenon. The effects of quantum statistics, screening, hot phonons, and acoustic phonons are quantified in order to assess their relative physical importance. We find that for low-electron-density samples there is a temperature range in which it is essential to include plasmon-phonon coupling in the theory, and predict how this effect will manifest itself experimentally. Our theoretical results are in good agreement with the available experimental data in GaAs and ${\mathrm{Ga}}_{\mathrm{x}}$${\mathrm{In}}_{1\mathrm{-}\mathrm{x}}$As.

• Received 9 November 1987

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.37.6290