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physica status solidi (b)

Optical Nonlinearity and Bistability in the Bound Exciton Energy Range of CdS

Thomas Honig, Juergen Gutowski

Published Dec 1, 1988• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Under high excitation conditions thick CdS samples show pronounced broad‐band nonlinear transmission in the bound exciton region and up to a wavelength of about 515 nm at cryo‐temperatures. This behavior is only explainable in a model based on impurity neutralization and bound exciton creation. The suitability of these nonlinearities to yield optical bistability will be shown. Bistable operation is investigated in dependence of crystal thickness, impurity concentration, excitation density, wavelength, and temperature. A strong correlation to acceptor‐bound exciton generation is obtained, and the explanation of this bistable operation fits well with that of the above mentioned transmission behavior.

DOI
10.1002/pssb.2221500275

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Abstract Under high excitation conditions thick CdS samples show pronounced broad‐band nonlinear transmission in the bound exciton region and up to a wavelength of about 515 nm at cryo‐temperatures. This behavior is only explainable in a model based on impurity neutralization and bound exciton creation. The suitability of these nonlinearities to yield optical bistability will be shown. Bistable operation is investigated in dependence of crystal thickness, impurity concentration, excitation density, wavelength, and temperature. A strong correlation to acceptor‐bound exciton generation is obtained, and the explanation of this bistable operation fits well with that of the above mentioned transmission behavior.
Abstract Nonlinear optical transmission in unintentionally or lightly doped CdS crystals is studied theoretically and experimentally near the band gap. A spatially homogeneous three‐level model is developed which explains the observed optical switching process and its dependence upon incident intensity, wavelength, lattice temperature, and surface reflectivity. It is shown that the switching is due to the dynamics of the generation‐recombination processes involving donors, acceptors, and the conduction band, and not due to transmissive optical bistability.
A general discussion of the linear-optical properties of free and bound excitons in direct-gap semiconductors at low temperature is presented. This discussion then specializes to CdS. The nonlinear-optical response of CdS is introduced by first discussing the saturation behavior of bound excitons. A new type of cavityless optical bistability based on induced absorption near the free and bound excitons is described. Finally, fast all-optical switching (<1 nsec) at very low switching energies (<8 pJ) is demonstrated, using the giant nonlinearity associated with bound excitons.
Abstract Thermally induced dispersive and absorptive optical bistability of CdS is investigated in a temperature range of 20 K to RT. The influence of the geometry of the crystals, e. g., thickness, surface area size, and resonator structure, on the hysteresis feature and switching behavior is investigated. The quality of the thermal contact between the sample and the heat sink strongly influences switch‐back times. Further, starting temperature, light spot diameter, and pulse intensity are varied in order to find a set of optimization criteria for this kind of optical bistability. Experimental results are in good agreement with model calculations.
Semiconductors exhibit large optical nonlinearities near the band edge because of resonance enhancement. Optical bistability occurs when the optical nonlinearities are coupled with feedback. In bulk GaAs and GaAs–AlGaAs multiple-quantum-well superlattices, the nonlinearity arising from the presence of the free-exciton resonance has produced room-temperature optical bistability with a few milliwatts of power. The formation of biexcitons in CuCl, the saturation of the bound exciton on CdS, and band-filling effects in InSb, InAs, and HgCdTe lead to observation of bistability in these materials. A bistable etalon can be operated in an optical-gate mode to generate optical analogs of electronic gates such as and, or, and nor. It has been demonstrated that a GaAs optical NOR gate responds in ∼1 psec, using only ≲3 pJ of energy. However, because of the carrier lifetime of a few nanoseconds, the repetition rate of the NOR gate is now limited to a few hundred megahertz.