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arXiv:2609.29415

Vertical microcavities with optical Kerr materials

Riya Varghese, Ali Panahpour, Marco Ornigotti, Mikko J Huttunen

Published Sep 24, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Optical Kerr nonlinearity is central to optical bistability in high-Q microcavities. Here, we show that optical Kerr nonlinearities in Fabry Perot resonators can also result in self-focusing effects, that can substantially modify the Q-factors of the resonators. For the studied cavities, up to five-fold increase in Q-factors is predicted, attributed to reduction of sidewall leakage, confirmed via simulations performed on curved cavities. We also show that for high Q-factor cavities, the higher-order Kerr effect can become relevant already at modest input intensities scaling inversely with Q-factor for a particular n2/n4 ratio. We investigate numerically the role of higher-order Kerr effect on optical bistability responses and find that its inclusion can shift the bistability threshold to higher input intensities than predicted by the standard n2-only model.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2609.29415

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Optical Kerr nonlinearity is central to optical bistability in high-Q microcavities. Here, we show that optical Kerr nonlinearities in Fabry Perot resonators can also result in self-focusing effects, that can substantially modify the Q-factors of the resonators. For the studied cavities, up to five-fold increase in Q-factors is predicted, attributed to reduction of sidewall leakage, confirmed via simulations performed on curved cavities. We also show that for high Q-factor cavities, the higher-order Kerr effect can become relevant already at modest input intensities scaling inversely with Q-factor for a particular n2/n4 ratio. We investigate numerically the role of higher-order Kerr effect on optical bistability responses and find that its inclusion can shift the bistability threshold to higher input intensities than predicted by the standard n2-only model.
Based on Fabry-Perot cavity's theories and efficiency refractive index,the optical bistability of a nonlinear microcavity is studied,and the corresponding mathematical formula are deduced.The theoretical curves are well fitted with those of numerical simulation in other papers.The investigation shows that appropriate frequency-shifting should be preset on the incident light in order to produce bistability for a nonlinear system.If the system is composed of focusing nonlinear medium,the frequency must be redshifted, otherwise it must be blue-shifted.The magnitude of critical shifting is 0.866 times of the width of microcavity resonance mode.
We propose a mechanism for achieving optical bistability in semiconductor heterostructures. In contrast to the well-known refractive shift of the Fabry-Perot mode in macroscopic resonators, we consider the bleaching of the exciton Rabi splitting in strong-coupling microcavities and prove that this nonlinear process leads to an optically bistable behavior. Through a model based on the transfer-matrix formalism, we predict the dependence of this effect on specific material parameters and on the nature of the cavity. Numerical calculations are carried out for quantum well embedded cavities and the possibility of room-temperature bistable operation is also discussed. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Kerr-type leaky resonators are distributed couplers. They can be prism or \ngrating couplers, Fabry-Pérot's or multilayer devices all which include a nonlinear \nmedium that exhibits the optical Kerr effect [IX. 1 and IX.2]. One of the key features of \nthe optical Kerr effect is that it gives rise to a light-intensity dependent refractive index, \nallowing in this way to control light with light [IX.3]. This constitutes a fascinating field \nof nonlinear optics. The resulting all-optical interactions lead to numerous manifestations \nranging from optical bistability to "exotic" behavior such as self-pulsing, chaos, strange \npattern, light bullets, etc. The first observations of optical bistability date back to the \n1970s [ІХ.4-ІХ.7]. A proper study of these effects requires the development of a spatiotemporal theory of the optical Kerr effect in leaky resonators [IX.8].
In this complement we discuss several examples of optical phenomena in media where the refractive index depends nonlinearly on the intensity , known as optical Kerr media. This nonlinear effect exists in all materials, even isotropic ones, like glass or fused silica, but it is particularly marked in certain physical systems to be exemplified in Section 7B.1. After investigating the propagation of light through such media in Section 7B.2, we shall discuss three applications of the optical Kerr effect (which can be studied in any order). We begin by describing a bistable optical system , when this nonlinear medium is inserted in a Fabry–Perot cavity (Section 7B.3). We then study phase conjugate mirrors and examine their potential applications in adaptive optics (Section 7B.4). Finally, we discuss certain effects occurring during the propagation of an isolated wave, bounded either transversely or temporally, in a Kerr medium, and describe self-focusing effects (Section 7B.5) and self-phase-modulation effects (Section 7B.6). In particular, we shall show that nonlinear effects and dispersion effects can compensate to produce stable structures known as solitons , which maintain their shape during propagation. Examples of third-order nonlinearities Nonlinear response of two-level atoms We begin by studying a simple case of a nonlinear interaction, namely a two-level quantum system under the effects of a plane wave.
Focus Serial: Frontiers of Nonlinear Optics Nonlinear photonic-crystal microresonators offer unique fundamental ways of enhancing a variety of nonlinear optical processes. This enhancement improves the performance of nonlinear optical devices to such an extent that their corresponding operation powers and switching times are suitable for their implementation in realistic ultrafast integrated optical devices. Here, we review three different nonlinear optical phenomena that can be strongly enhanced in photonic crystal microcavities. First, we discuss a system in which this enhancement has been successfully demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally, namely, a photonic crystal cavity showing optical bistability properties. In this part, we also present the physical basis for this dramatic improvement with respect to the case of traditional nonlinear devices based on nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalons. Secondly, we show how nonlinear photonic crystal cavities can be also used to obtain complete second-harmonic frequency conversion at very low input powers. Finally, we demonstrate that the nonlinear susceptibility of materials can be strongly modified via the so-called Purcell effect, present in the resonant cavities under study.