The interaction of the semiconductor with electromagnetic radiation can be described , in the semiclassical regime , using response functions

such as e and which are dened in the following section . The task of the description is then reduced to that of building a suitable model of and e that takes into account the knowledge of the physical characteristics of the semiconductor and the experimentally observed optical behavior . One example of a particularly simple and elegant , yet surprisingly accurate and successful , model of e for most semiconductors is the linear-chain description of lattice vibrations . 7 This model treats the optical phonons , i . e ., the vibrations that have an associated dipole moment , as damped simple harmonic motions . Even though the crystal is made up of , 10 2 3 atoms , such a description with only a few resonant frequencies and phenomenological terms , such as the damping and the ionic charge , accurately accounts for the optical behavior in the far-infrared region . The details of the model are discussed in the following section . Such simple models are very useful and illuminating , but they are applicable only in a limited number of cases , and hence such a description is incomplete . A complete and accurate description will require a self-consistent quantum mechanical approach that accounts for the microscopic details of the interaction of the incident photon with the specimen and a summation over all possible interactions subject to relevant thermodynamical and statistical mechanical constraints . For example , the absorption of light near the fundamental gap can be described by the process of photon absorption resulting in the excitation of a valence-band electron to the conduction band . In order to obtain the total absorption at a given energy , a summation has to be performed over all the possible states that can participate , such as from multiple valence bands . Thermo-

dynamic considerations such as the population of the initial and nal states have to be taken into consideration in the calculation as well . Hence , a detailed knowledge of the Optical / Dielectric Response Optical Constants and the Dielectric Function . In the linear regime , the dielectric function e and the susceptibility are dened by the following relations

where E , D , and P are the free-space electric eld , the displacement eld , and the polarization eld inside the semiconductor ; e 0 is the permittivity of free space ; and e and are dimensionless quantities , each of which can completely describe the optical properties of semiconductors .