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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Optical Bistability In Air-Spaced Fabry-Perot Etalons Caused By Thermal Expansion

W. Lukosz, P. Pirani, G. Appenzeller-Combe

Published Feb 8, 1989• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrated optical bistability in air-spaced Fabry-Perot etalons caused by thermal expansion of the mirror substrates and a concomitant reduction in mirror separation. The theory of this type of bistability is presented. Experimental results for metal mirror coat-ings of gold or aluminium on glass and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) at the He-Ne laser wavelength λ=632.8 nm are given.

DOI
10.1117/12.947881

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We demonstrated optical bistability in air-spaced Fabry-Perot etalons caused by thermal expansion of the mirror substrates and a concomitant reduction in mirror separation. The theory of this type of bistability is presented. Experimental results for metal mirror coat-ings of gold or aluminium on glass and polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) at the He-Ne laser wavelength λ=632.8 nm are given.
Optical bistability can be obtained in nonlinear materials either with Fabry-Perot mirrors or without external feedback. When a material is placed between partially reflecting mirrors, a nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalon is formed with the etalon providing an external feedback. Optical bistability and gating occur as a result of a shift in the Fabry-Perot peak when the light intensity is increased (or when a second laser beam is introduced into the cavity). Optical bistability with the external feedback mechanism has been observed in many semiconductors such as bulk GaAs, GaAs-AIGaAs multiple-quantum-well (MQW) structures, InSb, InAs, CdS, CdHgTe, GaSe, and CuCI.
We report the optical bistability and the self-oscillation of a nonlinear Fabry–Perot etalon filled with Norland optical adhesive 81. A normal and an inverted bistable loop were observed for a short (80msec) and a long (1.2sec) input optical pulse duration, respectively. The self-oscillation properties depended sensitively on the substrate and the spacer thicknesses. The measured self-oscillation period became longer with an increase of the spacer thickness and was in the range o 0.2 to 3 seconds. The inversion of the bistable loop, and the self-oscillation in this experiment can be explained by the competition between the fast thermal refractive index change and the slow linear thermal expansion of the etalon.