Bruno ULLRICH and Takayoshi KOBAYASHI

Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113 Japan

(Received June 7, 1995; Accepted September 12, 1995)

First reports of absorptive all-optical bistabilities in reflectance and luminescence of a Fabry-Perot cavity consisting of thin (0.70 μm) ZnSe film are presented. We demonstrate that the observation of bistability in the reflected beam does not require necessarily the appearance of bistability in the transmitted beam. Luminescence bistabilities, however, are observed both in the light captured from the incident side of the film and in the light emitted from the transmission side. The bistabilities in reflection and luminescence are explained quite satisfactorily by the principle of increasing absorption due to photo-irradiation and the dependence of the luminescence intensity on a photo-thermally induced temperature change, respectively. All experiments were carried out at room temperature with the 488 nm line of an argon laser.

Key words : optical bistability, Fabry-Perot effects, bistable luminescent effects, thin films, II-VI compounds