Cooperative optical bistability in a small volume without mirrors (A)

C. M. Bowden

H. J. Carmichael, P. D. Drummond, Saad S. M. Hassan +1 more

C. R. Willis

I. R. Senitzky, Jan Genossar

Y. Ben-Aryeh, Charles M. Bowden

Atomic cooperative effects in mirrorless (intrinsic) optical bistability (MOB) have been treated, so far, either by assuming a small volume with dimensions smaller than a wavelength1,2, or by assuming a system with a small number of atoms3. In the present work we discuss MOB based upon cooperative effects among atoms in a system consisting of many two-level atoms, considering explicitly the spacial dependence of the coherent dipole-dipole interactions.

Markus P. Hehlen, H. U. Güdel, Jagdish Rai +2 more

Optical bistability is a well-known phenomenon in optical systems of many kinds. However observations of intrinsic bistability are rare and have not been reported previously in rare earth systems for nonlinear dynamics due to inter-atom coupling which arises at high impurity concentrations. Typically, nonlinear response by this mechanism is too weak to give rise to sizeable nonlinearities. Here we present observations of cooperative upconversion emission from crystals of Yb3+ Cs3Y2Br4 at low temperatures however, in which hysteresis without mirrors provides evidence of strong cooperative nonlinear response.