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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Optical bistability of a dielectric cladded thin film near the total internal reflection state: theory and experiment

I. C. Khoo, Jingya Hou

Published Jan 1, 1985• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A nonlinear thin film bounded by two dielectric media can act as an optical switching bistable device owing to two mechanisms at work near the total internal reflection state. One is the intensity-dependent index change induced by the optical field in the thin film before transmission occurs, and the other is the nonlinear Fabry-Perot interference associated with the high reflectivities at the two interfaces just after transmission takes place.

DOI
10.1364/cleo.1985.tum2

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A nonlinear thin film bounded by two dielectric media can act as an optical switching bistable device owing to two mechanisms at work near the total internal reflection state. One is the intensity-dependent index change induced by the optical field in the thin film before transmission occurs, and the other is the nonlinear Fabry-Perot interference associated with the high reflectivities at the two interfaces just after transmission takes place.
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.
The electrodynamic and nonlinear optical properties of an interface between two media, one of which is nonlinear, have been studied in the context of optical switching and bistability. In this paper we consider the case in which a thin-film nonlinear material is sandwiched between two higher-index dielectric media; i.e., there are two interfaces. For an optical beam incident near the total internal re- flection state the large reflectivity of the two inter- faces gives rise to Fabry-Perot transmission/re- flection. This together with the nonlinear phase shift that can be induced in the thin film makes it possible for the system to perform switching and bistable operations.
The reflection of light at the interface between linear and nonlinear media can provide fundamentally novel nonlinear effects such as nonlinear switching from total internal reflection to partial transmission, bleaching of the interface, and bistability. The nonlinear interface is the simplest switching and bistable optical device. Unlike bistable Fabry-Perot resonators, it allows one to use broadband sources of light and remove resonant restrictions on frequency tuning, and offers potentials to attain high operating speed. Experimental demonstration of those effects shows good agreement with some of the predictions of plane-wave theory. Some of the experimental results as well as computer simulation, however, show a new feature of the phenomenon which requires further exploration.
The optical transmissivity of a mirrorless, nonlinear, absorbing dielectric thin film is investigated numerically. The dielectric function in the film region is dependent on the intensity of the electromagnetic field. Multivalued solutions of transmissivity as a function of incident power are calculated for the steady-state wave equation. The numerical solution is applied to two different model dielectric functions. As the absorption parameter is increased, larger values of incident intensity are required to switch the systems between stable output states. Also, the peak values of transmissivity are reduced as the absorption is increased.
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.
We show that the optical response of a nonlinear dielectric film may exhibit optical bistability even in the thin-film limit. Using a rigorous numerical treatment, we also show that the resonant excitation of nonlinear guided modes propagating along the film leads to switching intensities 104{10}^{4}104 times lower than those obtained with use of the resonances associated with the Airy function.