Hysteresis phenomena in the light self-diffraction in a dense resonant medium

On the basis of the modified Bloch equations a theory is developed of the light self-diffraction in a thin film of a dense resonant medium with allowance for the dipole-dipole interactions of atoms. It is shown that for certain values of intensity of an external field, there occurs in the film the light-induced first-kind phase transition which causes the emergence of regions (domains) with the high excitation of atoms. The switching effects of the system dense resonant medium + periodically-modulated field under consideration result in a hysteresis behaviour in the dependence of the diffraction efficiency on the adiabatically changing intensity of the external field. The predicted hysteresis offers additional potentialities in the investigation of the dynamics of the first-kind phase transition in dense media and outlook for usage of the film as a switching logical element.