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Optics Letters

Bistable optical systems based on a Pockels cell

Albert Feldman

Published Apr 1, 1979• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The performance of a bistable intensity modulator based on a Pockels cell can be optimized if a voltage proportional to a linear combination of input and output intensities is applied to the Pockels cell. The bistable response can more closely approximate a step function. The output-optical-power regulation can be improved at levels close to the input-power level. The operating point of an ultralinear modulator can be maintained at the most linear portion of the response curve. Some of the above features are demonstrated experimentally. Analogous modifications can be made to advantage on other bistable optical systems.

DOI
10.1364/ol.4.000115

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•Jan 1, 1982•1 citation
The performance of a bistable intensity modulator based on a Pockels cell can be optimized if a voltage proportional to a linear combination of input and output intensities is applied to the Pockels cell. The bistable response can more closely approximate a step function. The output-optical-power regulation can be improved at levels close to the input-power level. The operating point of an ultralinear modulator can be maintained at the most linear portion of the response curve. Some of the above features are demonstrated experimentally. Analogous modifications can be made to advantage on other bistable optical systems.
Optical bistable devices [1] are being developed with a view to their use as logic gates in optical processors [2]. The response of an optical bistable device is strongly nonlinear and once a device has been fabricated, its behaviour as a logic gate can still be modified to a large extent by the variation of certain parameters used to bias the device, Important responses include the device’s fanout potential, its switching speed and the contrast between its high and low output levels. Because of the complexity of the behaviour, it can be difficult to see how one response varies as another is improved. The method of ‘operating curves’ explained here allows a system designer to see how optimum performance may be attained.
During the last few years we have suggested1−2 the use of a four-level system irradiated by a bichromatic beam to obtain a tunable optical bistable device. By tunable we mean that the switching threshold can be altered without changing the hardware characteristics, the operating temperature, or the frequencies of the inputs to the device. The basic principle of our suggestion is that by irradiating the non-linear optical material by two beams of appropriately chosen frequencies in an optical cavity, one can act as a signal and the other as tuning control beam. The advantage of the four level system lay in the possibility of using low power control beams which could tune the characteristic optically bistable output curves.
When the output parameter of an optical device could be a multivalued function of the input parameter, this device can be working in an optical bistable status. The most typical optical bistable device is a Fabry–Perot cavity containing a nonlinear optical medium, the refractive index of which depends on the light intensity. Upon the action of an intense input optical beam, the transmitted (or reflected) intensity of this device may exhibit a nonlinear response to the incident light intensity variation and, especially under appropriate working conditions, the characteristic output/input curve may manifest a single (or multiple) hysteresis loop(s). Such type of optical bistable device can be used as an optical differential amplifier, optical switch, optical limiter, optical clipper, optical discriminator, or an optical memory element, depending on the chosen nonlinear medium and operation conditions.