Coupled Plasmon Phonon Polariton Waves in Cylindrical Zinc Selenide (ZnSe) Semiconductor: A Theoretical Study

Daya Shanker; Arjun Mishra

Abstract

Zinc Selenide (ZnSe) is a semiconductor material. In this study, Bloch hydrodynamical model is applied as a theoretical tool to investigate the coupling among plasmons, phonons and photons in the Zinc Selenide (ZnSe) semiconductor material. Here the geometrical shape of this semiconductor is taken cylindrical and surrounded with vacuum as a dielectric medium. Plasmons are the quanta of elementary excitations produced by the valence electron oscillations and phonons are the quanta of vibration of lattice of the material. Photons are the quanta of the electromagnetic (em) wave. The plasmons and phonons are excited with the help of incident electromagnetic wave (em) energy contained in the photons. An em wave consists of energy photons, which couple with plasmons and phonons under suitable resonance condition. This generates coupled frequency modes in different frequency ranges. ZnSe shows three coupled modes in ultraviolet (UV), visible and infrared (IR) ranges. In the dispersion curve, the UV mode is always left and above of the light line () and other two modes; visible and IR lie below and right of the light line. The mode in the UV range is transmitted through the material; it is called radiative. The other two modes in visible and IR range are non-radiative. The modes of different frequency ranges have various technological applications. The search of new materials for different applications is continuously growing and the study of these oscillations led researchers and engineers to make highly sophisticated sensors, photo-detectors, LEDs, nano-optical devices and others. They have also great role in various spectroscopic techniques, solar cells etc. For future applications, such investigations on other materials are highly promising.

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