Femtosecond dynamics of luminescence in optically excited semiconductors: Theory and simulation

We present a theory of time- and energy-resolved photoluminescence (PL) from semiconductors excited by femtosecond laser pulses. Our approach combines quantum kinetics of hot-carrier relaxation and quantum theory of spontaneous emission under consistent inclusion of Coulomb interaction. Model calculations show the transition from PL at the pump frequency via subsequent phonon replicas until the build-up of excitonic PL. We predict hot luminescence to be a sensitive measure of electron-LO-phonon quantum kinetics and bottleneck effects.