Nonequilibrium phonons in conducting point contacts

The effect of reabsorption of nonequilibrium phonons on the nonlinear electrical conductivity of metallic and semiconducting point contacts is studied theoretically. It is shown that in the presence of sufficiently strong elastic scattering of phonons, the contribution of reabsorption processes to the point-contact spectrum is comparable to the contribution of spontaneous phonon generation, and gives rise to the appearance of a background and an asymmetry in the PC spectra relative to the polarity of the voltage. This asymmetry is linked to the drag of the electron flow by nonequilibrium phonons and is determined by the elastic scattering length for scattering of phonons by defects. It is shown that it is in principle possible to reconstruct the energy dependence of the phonon elastic scattering time from the form of the asymmetric part of the PC spectrum.

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