Hysteretic (bistable) cyclotron resonance in semiconductors

The cyclotron resonance in semiconductors under the action of quasiresonant radiation is considered in the classical single-electron approximation. It is shown that under some critical conditions, bistability and large hysteretic jumps in momentum of an electron (and related jumps in the electrical potential between the faces of the semiconductor layer) could be observed. This is due to the nonparabolicity of the semiconductor conduction band, which results in a nonlinear relation between the applied electromagnetic field intensity and the cyclotron frequency. For a magnetic field of ∼140 kG, the 10.6-μm radiation of a ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ laser of 240 W/${\mathrm{cm}}^2$ is sufficient to excite a bistable resonance in InSb.