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Technical Physics

Optical bistability and modulation of light in a thin-film resonator based on total internal reflection

A. D. Soler, Yu. P. Udoev

Published Dec 1, 1997• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

An approximate theoretical analysis is given of the bistable behavior of a simple resonator based on total internal reflection. It is assumed that the medium within the resonator is simultaneously absorbing and nonlinear. It is found that the amplitude bistability characteristics can be comparable to analogous characteristics for more complicated total-internal-reflection structures whose operation is based on tunnel excitation of waveguide modes. It is shown that strong phase bistability is possible in nonabsorbing total-internal-reflection resonators, and the possibility of using total-internal-reflection resonators as light modulators is discussed.

DOI
10.1134/1.1258886

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An approximate theoretical analysis is given of the bistable behavior of a simple resonator based on total internal reflection. It is assumed that the medium within the resonator is simultaneously absorbing and nonlinear. It is found that the amplitude bistability characteristics can be comparable to analogous characteristics for more complicated total-internal-reflection structures whose operation is based on tunnel excitation of waveguide modes. It is shown that strong phase bistability is possible in nonabsorbing total-internal-reflection resonators, and the possibility of using total-internal-reflection resonators as light modulators is discussed.
Both static and dynamic characteristics of light reflected from a specially designed multilayer metal-dielectric structure with Kerr nonlinearity have been studied in this work. Various regimes of nonlinear reflection from the structure have been demonstrated, including bistable switching between low and high reflection states, which occurs at low intensity of the incident light due to a significant enhancement in the optical field in the nonlinear layer under conditions of total internal reflection. This nonlinear structure has been proposed to use as an optically controlled intracavity laser modulator.
A nonlinear thin film bounded by two dielectric media could act as an optical switching and bistability device, owing to two physical mechanisms at work near the total internal reflection state. One is the simple intensity-dependent index change induced by the finite optical field in the film before transmission occurs, and the other is the nonlinear Fabry-Perot interference associated with the high reflectivities at the two interfaces when transmission takes place. We present a detailed theory for these two mechanisms and for the case in which the nonlinearity is also nonlocal (e.g., in a liquid-crystal film). The results for multiple switchings and hysteresis hold in general for any nonlinear thin film.