RT Journal Article T1 Optical bistability and hysteresis of a hybrid metal-semiconductor nanodimer A1 Malyshev, Andrey AB Optical response of an artificial composite nanodimer comprising a semiconductor quantum dot and a metal nanosphere is analyzed theoretically. We show that internal degrees of freedom of the system can manifest bistability and optical hysteresis as functions of the incident field intensity. We argue that these effects can be observed for real-world systems, such as a CdSe quantum dot and an Au nanoparticle hybrid. These properties can be revealed by measuring the optical hysteresis of Rayleigh scattering. We also show that the total dipole moment of the system can be switched abruptly between its two stable states by small changes in the excitation intensity. The latter promises various applications in the field of all-optical processing at the nanoscale, the most basic of them being the volatile optical memory. PB American Physical Society SN 1098-0121 YR 2011 FD 2011-07-26 LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/42782 UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/42782 LA eng NO ©2011 American Physical Society.A.V.M. acknowledges support from projects MOSAICO (FIS2006-01485) and BSCH-UCM (PR58/08) and the Ramón y Cajal program (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España) and is grateful to the University of Groningen for hospitality. NO Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MEC) NO BSCH-UCM NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) DS Docta Complutense RD 16 abr 2025