Thermally induced optical bistability in ZnSe epilayers grown by molecular-beam epitaxy

Abstract
For the first time, ZnSe epitaxial layers grown by molecular-beam epitaxy are shown to exhibit large contrast, low power, and extremely long-term stable thermally induced absorptive optical bistability. It is observed over a wide temperature range between 169 K and RT, with a strongly variable loop width and a switch-back adjustable to be less than 50% of the respective switch-down value. Critical slowing down as well as switch-down times are studied in dependence of the excess over the switch-down intensity values.