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Optics Letters

Prism coupling into ZnS waveguides: a classic example of a nonlinear coupler

Gaetano Assanto, B. C. Svensson, D. Kuchibhatla, Ursula J. Gibson, C. T. Seaton, G. I. Stegeman

Published Oct 1, 1986• 80 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Prism coupling of an argon laser into a nonlinear ZnS waveguide was investigated for power slew rates much less than the nonlinearity relaxation time. The angular variation in coupling efficiency becomes progressively more asymmetric with increasing power until switching occurs on one side of the curve. For large detunings on the switching side, increasing absorption bistability was observed.

DOI
10.1364/ol.11.000644

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Journal of Applied Physics•May 15, 1987•32 citations
Prism coupling of an argon laser into a nonlinear ZnS waveguide was investigated for power slew rates much less than the nonlinearity relaxation time. The angular variation in coupling efficiency becomes progressively more asymmetric with increasing power until switching occurs on one side of the curve. For large detunings on the switching side, increasing absorption bistability was observed.
Prism coupling of an argon laser into a ZnS waveguide was investigated for power slew rates much less than the nonlinearity relaxation time. The asymmetries and switching as a function of coupling conditions predicted by Carter and Chen1 are demonstrated clearly for the first time, we believe. In addition we also observed increasing absorption bistability2 in conditions consistent with the angular switching results but different from those in which bistability has been previously reported in ZnS waveguides.3
Utilizing prism coupling of an argon laser beam into a nonlinear ZnS waveguide we have observed power-dependent optical bistability. We detuned the incidence angle by several linewidths from the optimal low power efficiency case. At this position we observed switching and hysteresis and verified the hysteresis loop to be bistable. The origin of the bistability we tentatively identified as a combination of intensity-dependent absorption and dispersion. Our conditions for bistability were different from those of W. Lukosz et al. in OPTICAL BISTABILITY III (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1986), p. 109.
The salient question which arises when light is coupled via a grating or a prism into a waveguide exhibiting an intensity-dependent refractive index is whether switching occurs with or without bistability under appropriate detuning conditions. There are two prevailing theories. In the first1, a plane wave input is assumed leading to a uniform optically induced index change in the coupling region. In the second2, a finite width incident beam is assumed and the growth of the guided field under the coupler leads to an index change proportional to the local guided wave intensity. The first approach leads to optical bistability under certain detuning conditions, whereas the second results in switching only. Although it is known that plane wave analyses are inadequate when dealing with linear-nonlinear interfaces, bistability has been observed experimentally with nonlinear prism couplers3. Fundamentally the finite beam theoretical approaches are unable to predict bistability because no longitudinal feedback is included. Recently we showed that when non-locality is introduced into the optically induced refractive index change, longitudinal feedback occurs and bistability is predicted for the growing mode case4. However, the model used for the non-locality was artificial and resulted only in qualitative predictions. In this paper the nonlocality is modelled by the same equation used to describe heat transfer and carrier diffusion, leading to a quantitative estimate of the minimum diffusion length required for bistability.
Self-pulsing optical systems produce at constant input power P an output power PR (t)varying periodically with time t. Self-pulsing (SP) in nonlinear Fabry Perots and hybrid systems is well known. We reported the first known observation of SP in prism coupling into planar waveguides [1]. Recently we identified the physical mechanism of the SP and we shaved that SP occurs in a wider class of waveguide materials [2]. We also demonstrated that the same prism-waveguide system can exhibit SP, optical bistability (0B), and a special form of bistability (0B/SP), where at the same constant input power P the output power P is either constant in time or self-pulsing. In the present paper we present more experimental material and discuss the physical effects determining the system's behaviour.