Modified optical bistability in two-photon absorption

H. Haug, S. W. Koch, R. Neumann +1 more

Nicolas Pettiaux, Paul Mandel

Miaodi Guo

F. T. Arecchi, Antonio Politi

Hoang Thi Huong, Le Nguyen Mai Anh, Le Thi Hoa Lai +5 more

We investigated control of optical bistability behavior based on the probe absorption and Kerr nonlinearity properties in a tripod-type degenerate four-level atom system under an external magnetic field. This excitation configuration can provide two transparent spectral regions on the probe absorption profile. It can be transitioned between the transparency and absorption regimes by turning on or off the magnetic field in different frequency domains. We can effortlessly transform one into two transparency windows, and vice versa, by modifying the intensity of the magnetic field. The investigations showed the enhancement of the Kerr nonlinearity around one/two-EIT windows, thereby forming one/two-channel optical bistability in these frequency regions. In addition, the coupling field intensity, the probe frequency detuning, and the atomic cooperation parameter have also significantly influenced the absorption spectrum, Kerr nonlinearity, and optical bistability. The proposed model has useful applications for storage and optical switching, and nonlinear logic gates in optical communications processing.

G. S. Agarwal, Ke Di, Liyong Wang +1 more

It has been shown that perfect photon absorption can occur in the linear excitation regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED), in which photons from two identical light fields coupled into two ends of the cavity are completely absorbed and result in excitation of the polariton state of the CQED system. The output light from the cavity is totally suppressed by destructive interference and the polariton state can only decay incoherently back to the ground state. Here we analyze perfect photon absorption and the onset of optical bistability in the nonlinear regime of the CQED and show that perfect photon absorption persists in the nonlinear regime of the CQED below the threshold of optical bistability. Therefore perfect photon absorption is a phenomenon that can be observed in both linear and nonlinear regimes of CQED. Furthermore, our study reveals that optical bistability is influenced by input-light interference and can be manipulated by varying the relative phase of the two input fields.