Characteristic features of the photoelectric amplification of variband
photoresistors, whose energy gap increases linearly toward the contac
ts, are theoretically investigated. It is shown that such photoresisto
rs are characterized by a nonmonotonic held-dependence of the photoele
ctric gain, whose maximum value increases with growth of the energy ga
p gradient and can substantially exceed the corresponding value for ho
mogeneous samples. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.