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Topical Meeting on Optical Bistability (OB)

Optical Bistability in CuCl

B. Hönerlage, J.‐Y. Bigot, R. Lévy

Published Jan 1, 1983• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

As it is well known from nonlinear optics, the dielectric function ε( Q ˜ ,ω) and the resulting polariton dispersion are functions of the excitation intensity. Since in CuCI biexcitons with energy EBi may be created by the absorption of two photons provided by different light sources, ε( Q ˜ , Ω ) depends on the density of photons with frequency ωℓ, defined such that.

DOI
10.1364/obi.1983.fc3

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As it is well known from nonlinear optics, the dielectric function ε( Q ˜ ,ω) and the resulting polariton dispersion are functions of the excitation intensity. Since in CuCI biexcitons with energy EBi may be created by the absorption of two photons provided by different light sources, ε( Q ˜ , Ω ) depends on the density of photons with frequency ωℓ, defined such that.
It is well established that biexcitons can be generated directly by two-photon absorption in CuCI. The intensity dependent nonlinearity arising from this resonance can be used to obtain optical bistability. Recently, Koch and Haug(1) and also Hanamura(2) have predicted the possibility of a bistable operation in a CuCI Fabry-Perot etalon. Hanamura uses a density matrix formalism and predicts that the switching can respond in a picosecond time scale due to the virtual formation of biexcitons. Koch and Haug obtain the complex dielectric function from a Green's function formalism and suggest a bistable behavior for a thin CuCI slab. They use a constant value for the biexciton linewidth, γxx, and a zero value for the exciton linewidth, γx. Their results indicate that a 1-μm-thick CuCI etalon, with natural reflecting surfaces, can give rise to bistability with a switch-on intensity of about 0.1 MW/cm2. The biexciton resonance, however, is located on the tail of the exciton resonance, which acts as a background absorption.
The stationary solution for optical bistability (OB) using a semiclassical exciton-biexciton model of CuCl is calculated exactly in the limit of large Fresnel number. The numerical solution of the second-order Maxwell equation is compared with corresponding results obtained with use of the slowly-varying envelope approximation (SVEA) as well as the mean-field approximation (MFA). It is found that results obtained using the SVEA are in close quantitative agreement with the numerical solution of the second-order Maxwell equation for each point in the parameter space considered, whereas the MFA correspondingly gives good qualitative results only. Furthermore, it is shown that the nonlinearity in the dielectric function for exciton-biexciton CuCl which causes OB is very nearly of the Kerr-medium type, and consequently, the two-photon biexciton resonance contributes only weakly to the OB characteristics.