Optical Bistability in PbSnSe at Room-Temperature with Infrared Radiation at Milliwatt Powers

We report the first observation of optical nonlinearity in PbSnSe using infrared radiation. This is also the first report of room-temperature optical bistability in PbSnSe with power levels of as low as 3 mW. These initial results of preliminary experiments are very promising and indicate possible applications in optical signal processing.