Kravchenko A. Experimental investigations of high-field autosolitons in non-equilibrium electron-hole plasma in Ge and Si crystals

The thesis deals with experimental studies of processes in the electron-hole plasma, under heating by strong electric field including the self-organization processes. In order to carry out experimental investigations the unique set-up has been constructed which enabled to make simultaneous measurements of the electric field distribution along a sample and electromagnetic radiation of the "hot" carriers in the infrared spectral range. The experimental evidences proving universal nature of the mechanism of thermodiffusion autosoliton formation due to plasma heating by the electric field, which was proposed earlier, have been presented. It is found, that the carriers temperature in autosoliton reaches 1000 K or even higher. It is shown that an autosoliton formation in plasma of crystals both of the p- and n- type performs by the same manner. The influence of the intervalley redistribution of "hot" carriers on the autosoliton formation has been studied. It is show that this redistribution which is due to many-valley band structure causes multi-step soliton formation.