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Applied Physics Letters

Low power transverse optical bistability near bound excitons in cadmium sulfide

M. Dagenais, Herbert G. Winful

Published Mar 15, 1984• 33 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the observation of cw transverse optical bistability without power hysteresis at 1-mW power levels in uncoated cadmium sulfide platelets. Optically induced refractive index changes as large as 0.15 are deduced from measurements of the transverse spatial ring profile.
DOI
10.1063/1.94844

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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Feb 28, 1997•0 citations
Very large nonlinearities are observed in the vicinity of a bound exciton resonance in cadmium sulfide. Power levels of the order of 8 μW are sufficient for saturating the bound exciton resonance in a tight focusing geometry. In a more loosely focused geometry, power levels of the order of 250 μW are sufficient for saturating the bound exciton resonance and for observing optical bistability. Transverse effects are found to play a very important role. For all our measurements, no thermal contributions to the nonlinearity were observed. Since thermal effects are not playing a role and since the studied bound excitons decay radiatively in 500 psec, we infer subnanosecond switchoff and cycling times.
Optical bistability in the presence of an optically induced absorption is observed when a thin 13-μm CdS sample is inserted between two mirrors of 90 % reflectivity, in our experiment, a modulated cw laser of ~15-mW peak power is tuned on each side of the free exciton resonance in CdS, and the transmission characteristics are studied. A theoretical calculation including both absorptive and dispersive effects is presented and good agreement is obtained. The absorption coefficient and the index of refraction of the material are connected by Kramers-Kronig relations. Propagation effects are taken into account. Sufficiently long pulses (40 ms) are considered to allow the thermally induced absorption to occur. For detunings above the free exciton resonance, we predict that counterclockwise hysteresis loops will first be observed as the intensity rises; for detunings below the free exciton resonance, only clockwise hysteresis loops are predicted. These predictions were experimentally verified. Power levels of the order of 5–10 mW were sufficient to observe bistability. Cavity effects were also observed.
Self-defocusing of ordinary and extraordinary laser beams have been investigated in cadmium sulfide semiconductors in the near-band-edge absorption region. First it has been shown experimentally, that effects of the anisotropy nonlinear refraction induced by charge carriers created by single photon absorption is described whole set components of the third order nonlinear susceptibility tensor. New type of transverse optical bistability with increased amout of feedback due to nonlinear anisotropy was demonstrated.