Many-particle Auger-type processes are common in nanoscale materials due to a combination of high densities of states that can support multiple excitations and substantial Coulomb coupling between charges enhanced by quantum confinement. Auger decay dynamics in (10,5) semiconductor carbon nanotubes (CNT) with different aspect ratios and particle densities are simulated in time domain using global flux surface hopping, recently developed and implemented within Kohn-Sham tight-binding density functional theory. Despite an increasing density of states, the multiparticle Auger recombination rate decreases in longer CNTs. The atomistic simulation shows that the effect is directly related to the coupling between electronic states, which decreases as the aspect ratio becomes larger. The dependence on tube length is stronger for three-exciton than two-exciton recombination and the calculated time scale ratio approaches the experimental value measured for long CNTs. Phonon-assisted transitions play a particularly important role during Auger recombination. Electron-phonon relaxation is faster than the recombination, and Auger transitions are assisted by phonons over a range of frequencies up to the G-mode. The involvement of phonons strongly enhances the probability of transitions involving asymmetric electron-hole pairs. The time-domain atomistic simulation mimics directly time-resolved optical experiments and provides a detailed, systematic analysis of the phonon-assisted Auger dynamics.
Keywords: Auger recombination; Carbon nanotubes; multiparticle processes; nonadiabatic molecular dynamics; tight-binding density functional theory.