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Physical Review Letters

Optical bistability by surface resonance modes

Masahiro Inoue

Published Mar 2, 1987• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

When a resonance mode is excited in a two-dimensional array of dielectric spheres, the local-field intensity is enhanced inside the spheres. This resonance frequency decreases with the increase of the dielectric constant. By use of these two properties, a new mechanism is proposed to realize optical bistability at a low laser power.
DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.58.871

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A novel mechanism is proposed for optical bistability by utilizing the effect of interference which occurs when two levels are coupled by a one-photon resonance and by a two-photon resonance. The resulting bistability does not require atomic saturation, so the bistability can be observed at relatively low incident intensities, and the mechanism is essentially Doppler free, since it occurs by a two-photon process involving absorption of counterpropagating beams of the same frequency. A significant feature is that two-photon bistability can be controlled not only by the magnitude of the field of the one-photon resonance but also by its phase, and an oscillation or amplification of the field of the two-photon resonance can be observed under certain conditions by the mechanism of the parametric interaction of the field of the one-photon resonance and the field of the two-photon resonance through a nonlinear medium.
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