Abstract
We have investigated the effect of an electromagnetic field on the tunnelling current bistability through a double-barrier structure. The main effect of an external electromagnetic field applied to the sample is to modify the amount of charge stored in the well due to the induced photon absorption and emission processes, specially for bias in the range corresponding to the bistability region. Therefore, the current density is modified with respect to the case where the light is not present, and the bistability region is reduced. Another interesting effect due to the light is the appearance of new bistability regions for certain values of barriers and well widths and intensity and frequency of the light.