UC Irvine

Photoelectroluminescence, which involves the control of electroluminescence by electromagnetic radiation, is reported for single crystals of manganese-activated zinc sulfide. Both plane-parallel and point-contact electrode structures were used. The latter resulted in greater homogeneity of luminescent emission with the applied voltage mainly across the spreading resistance regions. The field distribution was probed. The observations are explained with essentially the same basic theory as was earlier used to explain observations on vapor-deposited films. However, from the analysis of the data on single crystals we deduce that carrier multiplication is occurring in the cathode region and to a lesser extent in the anode region, and also obtain values for the local fields for acceleration of carriers and for collision excitation. © 1966 The American Institute of Physics.