Dispersion models describing coupled systems in doped crystals. II. Infrared phonon excitations in GaAs single crystals and phonon-plasmon coupling in Zn-doped GaAs

Abstract

We present a temperature-dependent infrared study of intrinsic and Zn-doped GaAs within a generalized dispersion framework describing coupled phonon and free-carrier excitations. Reflectance, transmittance, and ellipsometric data measured from 300 to 440 K are fitted simultaneously using Gaussian-broadened distributions for single-phonon modes and triangle-delta-triangle representations for multiphonon absorption bands. The formalism provides a self-consistent description of lattice and carrier contributions to the dielectric response and reproduces the evolution of phonon-plasmon coupling with doping and temperature. In heavily doped samples, a pronounced Fano-type asymmetry of the TO-phonon resonance is observed and attributed to interference between phonon excitations and the Drude background of light and heavy holes. The resulting optical constants remain physically consistent across the far- and mid-infrared range and demonstrate the applicability of the framework to coupled bound and free excitations in doped semiconductors. The approach provides a quantitative tool for modeling infrared optical properties of GaAs and related photonic materials.