Plasma induced optical nonlinearities and optical bistability in CdS

The transition from a low density gas of excitons to an electron-hole plasma is connected with strong variations of the optical properties. In this contribution we investigate both the optical nonlinearities produced in CdS by an intense laser beam in the spectral region close to the absorption edge and at the position of the laser itself. In a second part it is shown that the nonlinearities at the photon energy of the incident laser may lead to absorptive and dispersive optical bistability.