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Topical Meeting on Optical Bistability (OB)

Room-Temperature Thermal Optical Bistability in Thin-Film Interference Filters and Dye-Filled Etalons

Michael C. Rushford, Doreen A. Weinberger, H. M. Gibbs, C.F. Li, Nasser N. Peyghambarian

Published Jan 1, 1983• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Passive optical bistability in semiconductors was first seen in an interference filter with an intermediate layer of ZnS one-wavelength thick, and implied switch-on time of 200 μs.1 Thin-film interference filters may be potential practical bistable devices due to their room-temperature operation, extreme thinness, ease of production, and low-power operation.

DOI
10.1364/obi.1983.thb5

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Passive optical bistability in semiconductors was first seen in an interference filter with an intermediate layer of ZnS one-wavelength thick, and implied switch-on time of 200 μs.1 Thin-film interference filters may be potential practical bistable devices due to their room-temperature operation, extreme thinness, ease of production, and low-power operation.
Two-photon optical bistability in commercial thin-film interference filters with ZnS and ZnSe spacers is observed with switching times ≳ 200 μs. The accompanying drifting of the bistability loop in time and laser-induced "damage" indicate a thermal mechanism. The problem of water vapor absorption in such filters must be addressed before the inherent potential and advantages of these devices in two-dimensional image processing applications can be realized. Trans- verse effects in GaAs superlattice etalons are observed which cannot be explained on the basis of a plane-wave analysis. The optical nonlinearity in GaAs and diffraction combine to produce drastic effects on the measured beam profiles and bistable loops, due to an intensity-dependent virtual focus. Lastly, the first observation of optical bistability due to a biexcitonic nonlinearity in CuCl etalons is reported with detector-limited switching times of 600 ps. In addition, lasing action along the pump axis in a cavity defined by the end mirrors is observed in a very thin (2.0 μm) CuCl etalon. The lasing transition is unique in that it involves the creation of a virtual excitation of biexcitons which decay to the longitudinal exciton state.
Optical bistable devices may someday be the key elements of all-optical logic and computing systems.1 Semiconductor devices appear particularly promising because of very large optical nonlinearities permitting the construction of very small devices. The goal is to develop small (≃ 1 μm), fast (≃ 1 ps), low-power (≃ 1 μW), high-temperature (≃ 300 K) devices. Herein is reported room-temperature operation of GaAs devices that are similar in size, speed, and power to the low-temperature pure-GaAs device.2