Photothermal and electrooptic nonlinearities in ZnSe and ZnTe and their application in bistable devices

In this paper we present results on ZnSe and ZnTe optically bistable elements in connection with electrooptic effects. The behaviour of optical hysteresis under an applied electric field is studied and the electrical characteristics under illumination with monochromatic laser radiation are investigated. Influences of optical bistability on the photocurrent are measured and an attempt is made to explain the unusual behaviour of the current with respect to the absorbed amount of light, namely a switching down in photocurrent when the absorptive switching takes place. Towards this aim we report here for the first time on spatially resolved measurements of photoconductivity in ZnSe to investigate the influence of Schottky contacts on photothermal electrooptic bistability. Furthermore, we report also to our knowledge for the first time on the influence of the 3D-Stank effect on optical bistability.