Abstract
A Fabry-Perot interferometer containing a nonlinear medium exhibits many fascinating operating characteristics including hysteresis and AC gain. The basic concept and physical picture are given. The experiment demonstrating optical bistability in Na is described. The dominant role often played by nonlinear phase shifts was first discovered in analyzing that experiment. A simple analytic model of such dispersive bistability is derived giving simple relations between initial plate detuning, plate reflectivity, and magnitude of the nonlinearity for bistability or gain.
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© 1978 Plenum Press, New York
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Gibbs, H.M., McCall, S.L., Venkatesan, T.N.C. (1978). Optical Bistability and Differential Gain. In: Arecchi, F.T., Bonifacio, R., Scully, M.O. (eds) Coherence in Spectroscopy and Modern Physics. NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series, vol 37. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2871-1_5
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