Optical Bistability

Optical Bistability in Active Devices

1 . I n t r o d u c t i o n R e c e n t p r o g r e s s i n t h e s t u d y o f b o t h a b s o r p t i v e a n d d i s p e r s i v e b i s t a b i l i t y i n l a s e r d i o d e s (LDs) i s r e v i e w e d / I / . T h e m o s t d i s t i n c t i v e f e a t u r e o f b i s t a b l e LDs i s t h a t t h e y h a v e o p t i c a l g a i n . O p t i c a l g a i n r e s u l t s i n a d v a n t a g...

Optical Bistability and its Computation

Optical bistability of an aerosol particle.

The optical bistability of an aerosol particle is reported for the first time to the authors' knowledge. The mechanism for the effect is associated with the photothermal evaporation that accompanies the visible absorption by structure resonances.

Optical bistability in axially modulated OmniGuide fibers.

We demonstrate the feasibility of optical bistability in an axially modulated nonlinear OmniGuide fiber through analytical theory and detailed numerical experiments. At 1.55-microm carrier wavelength, the in-fiber devices that we propose can operate with only a few tens of milliwatts of power, can have a nearly instantaneous response and recovery time, and can be shorter than 100 microm.

Critical exponents in dispersive optical bistability