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Physical Review Letters

Experimental observations of bistability and instability in a two-dimensional nonlinear optical superlattice

Bin Xu, Nai‐Ben Ming

Published Dec 13, 1993• 30 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Optical bistability in a two-dimensional nonlinear superlattice, resulting from the index-modulation mechanism, was observed in experiment for the first time. The two-dimensional nonlinear superlattice was constructed by recording a two-dimensional refractive index grating into a photorefractive material, a Fe-doped ${\mathrm{LiNbO}}_{3}$ single crystal. Optical instability was also observed in this experiment.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.71.3959

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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America•Jan 1, 1987•0 citations
Optical bistability in a two-dimensional nonlinear superlattice, resulting from the index-modulation mechanism, was observed in experiment for the first time. The two-dimensional nonlinear superlattice was constructed by recording a two-dimensional refractive index grating into a photorefractive material, a Fe-doped LiNbO3{\mathrm{LiNbO}}_{3}LiNbO3​ single crystal. Optical instability was also observed in this experiment.
Experimental observation of optical bistability in a nonlinear two-dimensional volume refractive index grating is reported. The index grating in LiNbO 3 : 0.1 wt.% Fe photorefractive single crystal was fabricated by using hologram recording and subsequent thermal fixing techniques. Due to the thermal fixing, the stored 2D volume index grating shows no optical erasure during readout. An explanation of the nonlinear phenomena is also given in terms of the intensity-enhanced bulk photovoltaic effects in LiNbO 3 :Fe material.
It is shown that, when two coherent waves are obliquely incident to a one-dimensional nonlinear optical superlattice containing Kerr-form dielectric nonlinearity, an incident-dependent two-dimensional nonlinear optical superlattice can be constructed. This structure can be bistable. There exist two types of optical bistable mechanism, i.e., the index-modulation mechanism and distributed feedback mechanism. Owing to the index-modulation mechanism, the threshold for the bistability is lower than that of a more traditional one-dimensional distributed feedback structure.
We present an analysis of the steady state optical response of two-dimensional optical superlattices with Kerr nonlinearity. We consider the effects of the modification of the refractive index modulation strengths in the superlattices and the angular deviation of incoming radiation from Bragg conditions. We find that under Bragg incidence the system displays optical bistability only when the modulation ratio exceeds a certain threshold. We also predict that optical bistability can disappear under non-Bragg incidence. Physical considerations are presented and discussed on how to optimize the chances for observing optical bistability in such a superlattice.
It is known that two-wave coupling in photorefractive crystal may result in an intensity-dependent phase shift as well as energy transfer between the two waves without phase crosstalk. In a sense, this kind of phase shift is similar to the intensity-dependent refractive-index effects in Kerr media. Consequently, optical bistability can be established in an optical cavity with a photorefractive crystal. We formulate the model and get the expected bistable transmission with numerical simulations. Several cases, including that of the codirectional coupling and the contradirectional coupling, are considered. The effects of the photorefractive crystal’s distribution absorption and the spatial phase shift between the index grating and the light interference pattern in the crystal on the nonlinear transmission characteristics have also been studied. It is interesting to note that the output of the pumping wave is dependent on the cavity intensity and thus shows bistable behavior with respect to the cavity input as well.