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Optics Letters

Optical bistability and self-oscillation of a nonlinear Fabry–Perot interferometer filled with a nematic-liquid-crystal film

M. M. Cheung, Stephen D. Durbin, Y. Ron Shen

Published Jan 1, 1983• 62 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A Fabry-Perot interferometer filled with an 83-microm-thick nematic-liquid-crystal film exhibits multiple-order optical bistability and self-oscillation. The oscillation is shown to be due to two competing mechanisms with different response times contributing to the laser-induced refractive-index change.
DOI
10.1364/ol.8.000039

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We have studied theoretically and experimentally the nonlinear Fabry-Perot transmission of a cavity with a thin nematic liquid-crystal film. Various modes of operation have been observed, using a moderate-power cw laser. In the limit of small reorientation angles, the optically induced molecular reorientation of the birefringent crystal and the nonlinear phase shift is solved for a homeotropically aligned crystal. Multiple-valued Fabry-Perot transmission is obtained by solving the nonlinear equations that couple the optical phase shift with the cavity transmission. The time-independent nature of the process and the explicit quantitative expressions involving the nematic liquid-crystal parameters allow a direct comparison between the thoery and experimental results. Good quantitative agreement is demonstrated.
Abstract Molecular reorientation and laser heating induced by an optical field can yield significant changes in the refractive indices in a nematic liquid crystal. A c.w. laser beam is intense enough to induce a phase retardation much larger than 2pi in a nematic film less than 100 pm thick. Optical bistability in such a film sandwiched between mirrors can be readily observed. Coupling between the two mechanisms for induced refractive indices can lead to interesting results in the bistable operation.
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.
We study the nonlinear optical bistability and multistability of a nonlinear ferroelectric (FE) Fabry-Perot (FP) interferometer assumed coated with partial dielectric mirrors on its interfaces. The FE material is considered to have an intensity-dependent refractive index where the third order nonlinear susceptibility χ ilmn (3) acts like Kerr coefficient. The nonlinear response of the FE medium is modeled by the Landau-Khalatnikov (LK) dynamical equation. Within a single frequency approximation, the nonlinear wave equation is written in terms of polarization P rather than the electric field E as the dependent variable. The resulting nonlinear polarization equation is numerically integrated across the FP film using the fourth order Runge-Kutta method. The behavior of the resulting polarization and transmission as a function of the field input intensity is investigated.
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.