Dielectric function of the semiconductor hole gas

Abstract

The semiconductor hole gas can be viewed as the companion of the classic interacting electron gas with a more complicated band structure and plays a crucial role in the understanding of ferromagnetic semiconductors. Here we study the dielectric function of a homogeneous hole gas in zinc blende III–V bulk semiconductors within random phase approximation with the valence band being modeled by Luttinger's Hamiltonian in the spherical approximation. In the static limit we find a beating of Friedel oscillations between the two Fermi momenta for heavy and light holes, while at large frequencies dramatic corrections to the plasmon dispersion occur.