The conditions governing impact ionization in semiconductors are investigated, and then applied to determine the position in energy and k space of the various impact ionization thresholds in silicon and germanium. A combination of these results with the band structure, and with the known mechanisms of optical absorption, enables the enhanced quantum yield threshold in silicon and germanium to be explained. In silicon the quantum yield curve above the threshold appears to be determined primarily by the number of carriers available for ionization.
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R J Hodgkinson (1963) studied this question.
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