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Applied Physics Letters

Mirrorless all-optical bistability in bacteriorhodopsin

Devulapalli V. G. L. N. Rao, F. J. Aranda, Benjamin J. Wiley, Joseph A. Akkara, David Lee Kaplan, Joseph F. Roach

Published Sep 13, 1993• 56 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report direct observations of all-optical mirrorless bistability associated with saturable absorption in three kinds of bacteriorhodopsin (BR) samples: wild-type BR in water solution and dispersed in thin films of a polymer matrix as well as water solution of the genetically engineered mutant BRD96N. The experiments are carried out with picosecond pulses at 532 nm. The values measured for the saturation intensity are explained in terms of the relaxation of the excited M state population to the B state of the BR photocycle for the three kinds of samples studied.

DOI
10.1063/1.109665

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We report direct observations of all-optical mirrorless bistability associated with saturable absorption in three kinds of bacteriorhodopsin (BR) samples: wild-type BR in water solution and dispersed in thin films of a polymer matrix as well as water solution of the genetically engineered mutant BRD96N. The experiments are carried out with picosecond pulses at 532 nm. The values measured for the saturation intensity are explained in terms of the relaxation of the excited M state population to the B state of the BR photocycle for the three kinds of samples studied.
We report the optical characterisation of bacteriorhodopsin (BR) films of long intermediate-state lifetimes. The M-state lifetime is extended from 10 ms for the native BR protein to ∼20 minutes for our BR films, by chemical and physical modifications of the material. Optical cache memory characteristics of thin films are studied in excite-probe experiments in which nanosecond-duration pulses are used to excite a BR film and cw monochromatic light used to monitor the transmission dynamics. The memory read-time is found to vary significantly with the probe wavelength; it is of the order of milliseconds at 633 nm and of the order of 100 µs for probe wavelengths of 600 nm and below. The memory erase-time is ∼50 µs. Contrast ratios and insertion losses are measured at different probe wavelengths, with a maximum contrast ratio following nanosecond excitation of ∼3:1 obtained in the peak absorption region of the B-state ( ∼570 nm), at an excitation fluence of 30 mJcm-2. The implications of these results for the application of BR films as optical cache memory devices are discussed.
A spatio-temporal analysis of non-degenerate two-wave mixing in a saturable absorber, such as bacteriorhodopsin (bR) film, is performed. To do this, a theoretical model describing the temporal variation of the intensities is developed by taking into account the dielectric constant as a function of bR population. A good agreement between theory and experimental measurements is obtained. Thus, the dependence of the optical gain and the main dielectric constant parameters are studied at different intensities and frequencies. As a result, the best intensity-frequency zones where higher coupling is reached are proposed, and it is also demonstrated that non-uniform patterns, which evolve over time as a function of frequency difference, can be observed.
We observed superluminal light in aqueous solution of the protein complex bacteriorhodopsin (bR) at 647.1 nm wavelength where it exhibits reverse saturable behavior, exploiting the technique of coherent population oscillations (CPO). With a modulation frequency of 10 Hz, the signal pulse through a 1 cm path cell is ahead by 3 msec relative to the reference pulse, corresponding to a group velocity of -3.3 m/sec. Following our early work on slow light in the same sample at the saturable wavelength 568.2 nm, we now explicitly observed the narrow spectral hole in the absorption band of the stable B state and further, demonstrated a close correlation between the profile of the hole and the corresponding pulse delay for various modulation frequencies. A similar behavior is observed for superluminal light versus antihole blown in the absorption band.
We report measurements of nonlinear-optical responses of bacteriorhodopsin (BR) films of long intermediate-state lifetimes. Nanosecond-duration pulses were used as the excite beam and cw monochromatic light was used as the probe beam in excite–probe experiments. The results reveal that, whereas the response time of the BR films is of the order of milliseconds at the probe wavelength of 633 nm used in earlier experiments, it is of the order of 100 µs at probe wavelengths of 600 nm and below. Contrast ratios and insertion losses were also measured at different probe wavelengths and probe irradiance levels; the maximum contrast ratio was found to be ∼3:1. The implications of these results for the application of BR films as optical cache memory devices are discussed.
First reports of absorptive all-optical bistabilities in reflectance and luminescence of a Fabry-Perot cavity consisting of thin (0.70 ,cem) ZnSe film are presented. We demonstrate that the observation of bistability in the reflected beam does not require necessarily the appearance of bistability in the transmitted beam. Luminescence bistabilities, however, are observed both in the light captured Lrom the incident side 0L the film and in the light emitted from the transmission side. The bistabilities in reflection and luminescence are explained quite satisfactorily by the principle of increasing absorption due to photo-irradiation and the dependence of the luminescence intensity on a photo-thermally induced temperature change, respectively. A11 experiments were carried out at room temperature with the 488 nm line of an argon laser.