Bistability on reflection of a light beam from a nonlinear medium

P. W. E. Smith, W. J. Tomlinson, P. J. Maloney

G. B. Altshuler, Иночкин Михаил Владимирович, Aleksandr A. Manenkov

P. Martinot, S. Laval, A. Köster

The excitation of surface plasmon by attenuated total reflection can be used to get a bistable optical device. As the incident light beam propagates through a nonlinear medium, any intensity variation tunes the plasmon excitation through resonance. Furthermore, the superposition of the incident and reflected beams induces a feedback and allows bistable operation.

R. Loudon

A. E. Kaplan

A new kind of optical bistability is discussed that is based on mutual self-action of light beams in a nonlinear medium. In particular, fundamentally new devices are proposed that use two counterpropagating incident beams and no reflection feedback. Self-focusing (or self-defocusing) and self-bending provide bistability with positive or negative nonlinearity.

F. T. Arecchi, Giovanni Giusfredi, E. Petriella +31 more