Mirrorless dispersive optical bistability due to cross trapping of counterpropagating beams in sodium vapor
Kuochou Tai, A. Mysyrowicz, H. M. Gibbs +1 more
We report the first observation to our knowledge of mirrorless optical bistability based on a dispersive effect, namely, cross-trapping optical bistability due to the mutual interaction of two counterpropagating beams. The phase conjugation of a probe beam generated by four-wave mixing in such a system is sensitive to the intensities of the counterpropagating beams and has been used to monitor the bistability.
Optics Letters•May 1, 1985•12 citations