Autosolitons in an electron-hole plasma/excitons system in silicon at 4.2K

Results are presented of the experimental discovery and study of auto-oscillations in an electron-hole plasma/excitons system in silicon under conditions of impact ionization of the excitons in a constant electric field. It is shown that the current auto-oscillations are due to disruption of the uniform density distribution of the electron-hole plasma and its stratification, where the latter is caused by the formation of strongly nonequilibrium structures, namely, autosolitons. The microplasma breakdown of the reverse-biased Schottky barrier is the cause of the spontaneous excitation of autosolitons.