The electron lifetime in doped semiconductors is computed beyond the first Born approximation

What is it about?

This study deals with the important scattering approximation called the Born approximation, which is widely applied for problems met in solid-state physics and chemistry. Its time-dependent counterpart is the Fermi's golden rule. The paper shows the single-particle relaxation time, an important many-body property of the quasi-particles, electrons in our case, can be computed exactly by means of Calogero's variable phase method (VPM) when the inter-particle potential for electron-impurity interaction is assumed to be of Thomas-Fermi form.

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Photo by Dries Augustyns on Unsplash

Photo by Dries Augustyns on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This work is important as it clearly shows where the first Born approximation holds for the material parameters under scrutiny. Indeed the variable phase method provides a criterion for the validity of the Born approximation, requiring that the scattering phase shifts be smaller then Pi over 2, and more generally smaller than unity