EL2 deep level defects and above-band gap two-photon absorption in high gain lateral semi-insulating GaAs photoconductive switch

Experiments of a lateral semi-insulating GaAs photoconductive switch, both linear and nonlinear mode of the switch were observed when the switch was triggered by 1064 nm laser pulses, with energy of 1.9 mJ and the pulse width of 60 ns, and operated at biased electric field of 4.37 kV/cm. It's wavelength is longer than 876nm, But the experiments indicate that the semi-insulating GaAs photoconductive switches can absorb 1064 mm laser obviously, which is out of the absorption range of the GaAs material. It is not possible to explain this behavior by using intrinsic absorption mechanism. We think that there are two mostly kinds of absorption mechanisms play a key part in absorption process, they are the two-steps-single-photon absorption that based on the EL2 energy level and two-photon absorption.