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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Critical slowing-down phenomena in an InSb optically bistable étalon

Hameed A. Al‐Attar, W. J. Firth, Hugh Alexander MacKenzie

Published Sep 1, 1986• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the first known direct observation of the critical slowing-down effect and transient bimodality in an intrinsic semiconductor all-optically bistable device with a cw CO laser holding beam and a PbSSe diode laser switching beam. The measurements of critical slow-down effects show good agreement with the numerical model using a modified Debye dynamic equation. The switching profile has been shown to depend on both the size of the hysteresis loop and the diode pulse parameter. A scaling law for the delay time of the switching when external parameter P changes close to the critical value Pc has been indicated to fit (P − Pc)−1/2.

DOI
10.1364/josab.3.001157

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We report the first known direct observation of the critical slowing-down effect and transient bimodality in an intrinsic semiconductor all-optically bistable device with a cw CO laser holding beam and a PbSSe diode laser switching beam. The measurements of critical slow-down effects show good agreement with the numerical model using a modified Debye dynamic equation. The switching profile has been shown to depend on both the size of the hysteresis loop and the diode pulse parameter. A scaling law for the delay time of the switching when external parameter P changes close to the critical value Pc has been indicated to fit (P − Pc)−1/2.
The switching dynamics of an InSb optically bistable etalon are analyzed in terms of effective time constants which change dramatically near the switch points. Results are presented which show nanosecond switching, critical slowing down, optical biomodality, and noise filtration. The influence of noise levels on both the switching dynamics and the system stability close to switching are discussed. The InSb-CO system has the merits of being extremely stable and reproducible so that the detailed switching dynamics and statistics can be reliably assessed. In addition, it may be regarded as a model system so that the results presented can be scaled with appropriate material time constants to other bistable systems.>
The switching dynamics of thermally induced optical bistability in ZnSe nonlinear interference filters is investigated experimentally and theoretically. The device, maintained on its low transmission level by a cw argon laser beam, is switched on its high transmission level by an external light pulse. Either a very fast switching or an important slowing down are obtained when the holding cw intensity or the switching pulse energy are well chosen. This variation of the switching times is analyzed theoretically and observed experimentally.
We analyze the main features of transient bimodality in optically bistable systems. This phenomenon is proved to exhibit a nonmonotonic behavior in its dependence on the noise level, because a decrease of noise first enhances and subsequently damps the transient bimodality. Hence we identify a range of noise levels which characterizes the phenomenon. In this range the most probable switching time exhibits a remarkably linear dependence on the logarithm of the noise parameter. We discuss the dependence of the phenomenon on the distance from the critical point, especially in connection with the experiments on critical slowing down. Our results show a very satisfactory qualitative agreement with the recent experiments on transient bimodality performed by Lange and collaborators. We argue that our picture holds in general for a large class of systems which exhibit the phenomenon of transient bimodality.
We report the observation of external switching of an intrinsic optically bistable device by incoherent illumination. The InSb etalons used in this study were switched by a photographic flashlamp both from off to on resonance and, under different conditions, from on to off resonsance. It has been demonstrated experimentally that switching can be initiated as a result of either an electronic or a thermal effect. The parameters that determine which mechanism dominates in a particular instance are discussed. The results should have general application to a variety of materials of device interest.