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IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

Optical Bistability and Switching in Oppositely Directed Coupler

Asghar Ali, K. Nithyanandan, Kuppusamy Porsezian, Patrice Tchofo Dinda

Published Oct 10, 2016• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the optical bistability in two core oppositely directed coupler with negative index material channel. Using Langrangian variational method and Jacobi elliptic functions, we construct the solutions of the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations. The bistability arises due to the effective feedback mechanism as a result of opposite directionality of the phase velocity and energy flow in the negative index material channel. We report the various ways to control and manipulate the bistability threshold and hysteresis loop, which could be useful in the design and development of fast and low-threshold optical switches.

DOI
10.1109/jqe.2016.2616130

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We report the optical bistability in two core oppositely directed coupler with negative index material channel. Using Langrangian variational method and Jacobi elliptic functions, we construct the solutions of the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations. The bistability arises due to the effective feedback mechanism as a result of opposite directionality of the phase velocity and energy flow in the negative index material channel. We report the various ways to control and manipulate the bistability threshold and hysteresis loop, which could be useful in the design and development of fast and low-threshold optical switches.
Nonlinear directional couplers (NDCs) find wide interest in optical communication system because of its potential application in signal processing including optical switching and logic operation. In couplers, if any one of the channel of NDCs is replaced with negative index material (NIM), then the coupler is called as oppositely directed coupler (ODC) because of the opposite direction of input and output fields. The electromagnetic wave entering in one channel of the coupler leave through other channel in opposite direction. Optical bistability (OB) is a nonlinear phenomenon observed in optical systems such that, the system possesses two output intensities for the same input intensity. The importance of optical bistability arises due to its potential application for the development of devices such as optical switches, memories, and amplifiers. The primary requirements of OB are the intensity dependent refractive index and optical feedback mechanism. A two core directional coupler with channels made of nonlinear and homogeneous materials is not bistable. However, ODC shows the phenomenon of OB and admit gap solitons due to effective feedback mechanism in NIM channel arising as a result of opposite directionality of phase velocity and energy flow.
In the nonlinear directional coupler, the optical field and the nonlinear material usually interact in a spatially and temporally local fashion and the device exhibits a nonlinear transmission characteristics, but it is not bistable. In this paper, it is shown theoretically that optical bistability in the input optical power is possible for the nonlinear directional coupler if the local phase change of the optical mode propagating through tile coupler is influenced by the excitation over the whole coupler. This condition can be satisfied in a coupler based on biased-pin-diodes comprising coupled asymmetric quantum wells in the i-region, Calculations show that in this configuration, the nonlinear directional coupler can exhibit sharp switching characteristics, low switching optical powers, optical bistability or bifurcation.