Light-induced EMF in silver-palladium film resistors

We have studied the generation of nanosecond emf pulses in silver-palladium film resistors under the action of radiation of a Q-switched laser. The samples were fabricated using the technology of thick film resistors on dielectric substrates, based on fusing a resistive paste that contains palladium, silver oxide, glass, and an organic binder into the substrate at 880 K. The amplitude of detected pulses exhibits linear growth with the power of incident laser radiation, depends on the angle of light incidence (vanishes at the normal incidence) onto the film and the angle of film rotation about the normal to its surface, and changes its sign with that of the incidence angle. The duration of the generated emf pulses is several times that of the incident laser pulses. The signal is not of a thermoelectric nature and can be related to the current generation by means of the surface photogalvanic effect and the photon quasi-momentum transfer to charge carriers during light absorption by the film material.