Field Distribution and Current Saturation in Photoconductive CdS

The internal electric field distribution has been measured in photoconducting CdS single crystals using the linear electro-optic effect. The experimental results show a nearly homogeneous field distribution in the crystals for applied fields below the threshold for acoustoelectric oscillations, while a high-field region was created near the anode for fields above the threshold field. The reproducibility from sample to sample was rather poor. The linear electro-optic constant was calculated from the experimental results: (r′113−r′333)=2.7×10−12 m/V at the optical wavelength 6328 Å.