An optically bistable photodiode device.

摘要

The optically bistable photodiode device comprises a photodiode (101) in which the absorption of light is changed in accordance with a voltage to be applied thereacross, a circuit (102) for amplifying the photocurrent flowing through the photodiode, and a bias circuit (103) for controlling the voltage to be applied across the photodiode. The incident light supplied to the photodiode is chosen to have a wavelength at which a resonance is produced in an exciton absorption or bandedge absorption where an electric field applied across a multiple quantum well (12) is low so that a optically bistable operation is performed with a high speed response and low power consumption.