Slowing down far from the limit points in optical bistability

Bernard Ségard, J. Zemmouri, B. Macke

R. Bonifacio, Pierre Meystre

Sophie Cribier, E. Giacobino, G. Grynberg

Paul Mandel, Thomas Erneux

We study the influence of a small periodic modulation of the input field amplitude in dispersive optical bistability. When the system is initially near one of the two limit points in a stable state, the addition of a small periodic modulation may either stabilize or destabilize the system. We prove that destabilization occurs as a result of critical slowing down when the modulation frequency is decreased.

F. Carreño, M. A. Antón, Emmanuel Paspalakis

We study the optical response of a coupled asymmetric semiconductor quantum dot-spherical metal nanoparticle structure. The asymmetric quantum dot has permanent electric dipole moments that also interact with light. We derive the density matrix equations for the system including the modification of the electric field and the exciton-plasmon coupling. We emphasize on the effects of the nonlinear optical rectification and controlled optical bistability and analyze these phenomena for different values of the light intensity and different distances between the quantum dot and the metal nanoparticle. We show that when the system is set in a situation where optical bistability can be produced, the optical rectification of the hybrid system is bivalued. We also analyze the slow-down to reach the steady state when the system is driven close and far from the turning points.

Chunfei Li