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

Optical bistability in the light reflection from photorefractive crystals

N. S. Petrov, A. B. Zimin

Published Mar 15, 2001• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The rigorous solution in the plane-wave approximation of the light reflection boundary problem for the interface the isotropic medium - photorefractive crystal with the drift- diffusion nonlinearity mechanism is given. The possibility of the realization of the hysteresis light reflection phenomenon in this case under certain conditions is shown. The analytical expressions describing hysteresis behavior of the reflectivity as a function of the angle of incidence or that of the external electric field strength applied to the crystal are derived. By changing the value and sign of the applied electric field it is possible to transfer system from the total reflection state to the transmission state and vice versa. The obtained results are attractive for the elaboration of the possible devices for laser radiation control and optical information processing.

DOI
10.1117/12.418881

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The rigorous solution in the plane-wave approximation of the light reflection boundary problem for the interface the isotropic medium - photorefractive crystal with the drift- diffusion nonlinearity mechanism is given. The possibility of the realization of the hysteresis light reflection phenomenon in this case under certain conditions is shown. The analytical expressions describing hysteresis behavior of the reflectivity as a function of the angle of incidence or that of the external electric field strength applied to the crystal are derived. By changing the value and sign of the applied electric field it is possible to transfer system from the total reflection state to the transmission state and vice versa. The obtained results are attractive for the elaboration of the possible devices for laser radiation control and optical information processing.
A rigorous solution is given in the plane-wave approximation for the boundary problem of light reflection from the interface between an isotropic medium and a photorefractive crystal with drift-diffusion nonlinearity. The possibility of realizing hysteresis reflection or optical bistability in the system under certain conditions is shown. Analytical expressions are obtained that describe the hysteresis behavior of reflectivity as a function of the angle of incidence or the strength of a constant external electric field applied to the crystal. The results of the study are of interest for the development of devices controlling laser radiation.
We study the behavior of light waves at an interface between linear and photorefractive media, where the incident wave propagates from the linear side. We find bistable behavior of the reflection coefficient as a function of the incident angle at incident wave directions in the vicinity of the critical angle for total internal reflection. The analysis is based on approximations in the photorefractive-process equations, for which an analytical plane-wave solution for the boundary problem is found. In this regime an exponentially decaying evanescent field induces a uniform change of the refractive index. The limitation of this solution is also studied by a numerical analysis.
We consider a boundary value problem of reflection of a powerful light wave from a dense resonant medium that exhibits intrinsic optical bistability because of the dipole–dipole interaction of two-level atoms. On the basis of analytical solutions and numerical simulations we establish that intrinsic optical bistability results in the dependence of the reflection coefficient on the adiabatically varying intensity of an external field. The reflection coefficient is an oscillating function of the intensity because of the additional reflectivity that is due to a light-induced sharp discontinuity in the nonlinear permittivity of a dense resonant medium.
Recently1, an exact theory of the irradiated nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity and the ensuing multistability has been published. In this paper this approach is developed further and an exact treatment for the reflectivity and transmissivity of an optically isotropic structure of dielectric layers characterised by a third-order polarisation tensor at arbitrary angles of incidence is presented. The calculations use exact2 solutions of the nonlinear wave equation, rather than the commonly used ray treatment. This takes into account fully the standing wave effect and permits a precise examination of the interaction between the forward and backward travelling waves and the relationship between the transmissivity resonance condition and changes in the field profile. For an s-polarised incident wave an analytical solution is found for arbitrary angles of incidence and layer thicknesses. It is discovered that for certain ranges of layer thickness the system displays a multivalued response only above a critical angle. This bistability is achieved for irradiances much lower than those reported previously1 for normal incidence and indicates possible applications for optical processing. This plane wave treatment is supplemented by a numerical beam simulation which goes beyond the usual Fresnel approximation by utilising novel boundary conditions which permit the demostration of bistability.
We develop an approximate analytical theory for the reflection of a finite-width square-wave light beam at a nonlinear interface and make use of the results to assess the effect of the finiteness of the incident beam on the bistability of the signal reflected from a triple boundary interface under conditions for excitation of a waveguide mode. The nonlinearity of the interface is assumed to result from a substrate medium that has a Kerr-type quadratic dependence on the local electric-field amplitude. Our results indicate that the finiteness of the width of the incident beam substantially reduces the magnitude of the reflectance jump at the bistable switching point in comparison with that predicted by an exact plane-wave theory. Nevertheless, we conclude that a bistable reflectivity should still exist for the geometry that we consider at the switching intensity predicted by the plane-wave theory.