Theory of Nonlinear Refraction and Optical Bistability in Semiconductors.

H. Haug

Brian S. Wherrett

Abstract The design of optically bistable cavities for low-power switching requires an understanding of the variation of nonlinearities in refractive index with material, temperature, wavelength and cavity parameters. Analytic expressions, suitable for scaling, are discussed. The connections between the giant nonlinearities under current investigation and the nonlinear optical mixing processes studied since the 1960s are reviewed and the self-consistent semiconductor optical bistability problem is summarized.

Brian S. Wherrett, N. A. Higgins

Abstract Detailed comparisons are made of the results of two approaches to the problem of nonlinear refraction at frequencies just below the band edge in semiconductors. The physical origin o f the nonlinear dispersion is taken to be direct saturation of independent, T2-broadened band states in the first model discussed. In the second model the refraction associated with a dynamic Burstein-Moss shift of the absorption edge is considered. Both models predict an extremely large nonlinearity, X(3) ≈ 1 e. s. u., of importance in the field of dispersive optical bistability and consistent with experimental observations of bistability, two-beam differential gain and four-wave mixing.

В. С. Днепровский, A. I. Furtichev, Victor I. Klimov +3 more

Chandan Misra, Pratibha Tripathi, G. S. Tripathi

Riccardo Calvani, Renato Caponi

The optical bistability (OB) behavior of a semiconductor Fabry-Perot (F.P.) cavity, biased around threshold, has been employed to evaluate the optical device parameters.1 In the present work, this approach was experimentally applied to measurements of the nonlinear refractive-index coefficient n2 in OB operating conditions.