Photomodulation of the coupled plasmon-LO phonon of GaAs surfaces

Photomodulation of the coupled plasmon-LO phonon modes has been employed to determine the change in both the surface charge density and the depletion electric field as a function of photomodulation beam (PMB) intensity. The samples are two pieces of highly doped (001) n-type GaAs. The total surface charge density has been obtained as a function of the photomodulating intensity using the dependence of the unscreened LO phonon on the depletion width. We are able to separate the impact of the PMB on the surface electric field from the impact on the depletion width. This allows a separate determination of the change in depletion electric field, which reaches similar to73% of its original value at the highest intensity used for PMB.