Dynamics of recombination in viscous electron–hole plasma in a mesoscopic GaAs channel

The recombination dynamics are studied in viscous electron–hole plasma, consisting of electrons and photo-generated heavy and light holes, formed in the high-mobility mesoscopic GaAs channel. It is shown that an increase in the pump power reduces the concentration and mobility of background electrons, which, in turn, slows down their recombination with photogenerated holes. At a critical pump power, the recombination time begins to decrease, which is a consequence of the transition of a viscous electron–hole plasma from the hydrodynamic regime to the Drude diffusive regime. The observed transition occurs when the scattering of electrons with disorder begins to dominate over electron–electron scattering, which leads to the transformation of an inhomogeneous Poiseuille charge flow into a homogeneous diffusion flow. As a result, an optical analogue of the Gurzhi effect has been found.