Abstract
Chapter 7 gives the theory of a laser, which is a self-sustained oscillator consisting of an active medium in a Fabry-Perot or ring cavity. The laser output frequencies, imposed by the self-consistent laser equations, are compromises between the atomic and cavity natural frequencies. In this chapter, we discuss another situation involving a nonlinear medium in Fabry-Perot and ring cavities, but with two major changes: 1) the cavity output depends on an injected signal for its energy and output frequency, and 2) the medium is passive, i.e., it absorbs and/or provides an index change — but for two-level media, the upper state is not pumped. The name optical bistability comes from the characteristic of such systems that for a single input intensity, two (or more) stable output intensities are often possible, one large and one small. The system is like an electronic flip-flop except that it is all-optical.
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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Meystre, P., Sargent, M. (1999). Optical Bistability. In: Elements of Quantum Optics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03877-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03877-2_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-03879-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-03877-2
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