All-optical switching and storage in a four-level tripod-type atomic system

The optical behavior of a four-level tripod-type atomic system in a ring resonator driven by a cavity field and two external coherent fields is studied. It is shown that the atomic response exhibits an ultra-sensitive switch from high absorption to nearly transparency by changing the value of one of the control fields. The optical bistable response can be controlled by means of the external fields. The system can flip from the lower to the upper branch of the hysteresis curve without changing the incident probe. Switching and information storage of a light signal are predicted under appropriate triggering of the auxiliary external optical signals.     

Electromagnetically Induced Grating Without Absorption Using Incoherent Pump

We propose a scheme for creating electromagnetically induced grating in a four-level double- Λ atomic system driven by a coupling field and an incoherent pump field. Owing to the incoherent pumping process, large refractivity accompanied with vanishing absorption or even gain across the probe field can be built up in the atoms, thus phase grating or gain-phase grating, which diffracts a probe light into different directions, can be formed with the help of a standing-wave coupling field. The diffraction efficiency of the gratings can be tuned by the coupling field intensity and the incoherent pump rate, hence the proposed gratings should be suitable for beam splitter and optical switching in optical communication and networking.     

Control of the threshold intensity and hysteresis cycle of optical Bi(multi)stability via atomic injection and exit rates from cavity

The optical bistability (OB) and multistability (OM) in an open Λ-type three-level atomic system inside a ring cavity are investigated. It is found that the ratio of atomic injections β and the exit rates r ₀ from cavity evidently affects the threshold intensity of OB and OM. The effect of incoherent pumping field on the OB and OM of a medium is discussed. We show that the bistable behavior of the open system significantly differs from that in a corresponding closed system, especially with an increase in the incoherent pump rate. The intensity threshold is reduced in an open system but increases in a closed system. In addition, the dependence of OB and OM in an open system on spontaneously generated coherence, the relative phase the between probe and coupling fields, the coupling-field intensity, and the cooperation parameter are briefly discussed.     

Mott-insulator States of ultracold atoms in optical resonators

We study the low temperature physics of an ultracold atomic gas in the potential formed inside a pumped optical resonator. Here, the height of the cavity potential, and hence the quantum state of the gas, depends not only on the pump parameters, but also on the atomic density through a dynamical ac-Stark shift of the cavity resonance. We derive the Bose-Hubbard model in one dimension and use the strong coupling expansion to determine the parameter regime in which the system is in the Mott-insulator state. We predict the existence of overlapping, competing Mott-insulator states, and bistable behavior in the vicinity of the shifted cavity resonance, controlled by the pump parameters. Outside these parameter regions, the state of the system is in most cases superfluid.     

Manipulation of tunneling induced transparency windows and optical switching features in fivefold quantum dot molecules

Transient and steady-state behavior of the probe absorption in a multiple quantum dot (QD) molecule composed of five quantum dots molecules (with a center dot and four satellite dots) is explored with application in all-optical switching. We find that the absorption spectra of the light pulse can be efficiently modified via the effect of inter-dot tunnel couplings of QDs and incoherent pumping field. Results show that depending on the values of system parameters, at least one and at most four tunneling induced transparency (TIT) windows can be established in the multiple QD medium. We then investigate the dynamical behavior of the probe absorption-amplification as well as the optical switching in pulsed regime. By adjusting the incoherent pumping rate, the required switching time for changing the gain to the absorption or vice versa is then estimated approximately to be 20.7 nanosecond (ns), that is an appropriate time for such a QDM-based switch.     

Optical bistability using quantum coherence in a microwave-driven four-level atomic system

The behavior of the optical bistability (OB) is investigated in an optical system which consists of a four-level atomic system with a microwave drive field and an optical cavity. It is found that the optical bistability can be accomplished by adjusting different physical parameters in both steady and transient process. Due to the existence of the microwave drive field, the optical bistability can be also obtained even under weak coherent coupling field condition. Since the intensity and phase of microwave drive field can be conveniently modulated, this optical system provides a new experimental method to test the optical bistability theory.     

Optical bistability in a three-level semiconductor quantum-well system

Optical bistable behavior in a unidirectional ring cavity (or a Fabry–Pérot cavity) containing a semiconductor quantum well, described as a three-level ladder-type system with similar transition energies, has been studied. The system interacts with a strong driving field which is in two-photon resonance with the intersubband transition and thus simultaneously drives all three levels into phase-locked quantum coherence. The threshold for switching to upper branch of the bistable curve is found to be reduced due to the presence of quantum interference. Such system can be used for making efficient and fast all-optical switching devices. PACS 78.67.De; 42.50.Hz; 78.20.Bh     

Negative refraction without absorption via both coherent and incoherent fields in a four-level left-handed atomic system

This paper attempts a probe into negative refraction without absorption by means of an incoherent pump field and a strong coherent field coupling the dense four-level atomic system. With the application of the incoherent pump field to manipulate the populations in atomic levels and the variable strong coherent field to create quantum coherence, the constraint condition of two equal transition frequencies responding to the probe field in the atomic system isn't required. And these lead to the propagation transparency and strong magnetic response of the probe field, left-handedness with vanishing absorption in the atomic system. However, an excessive coherent field intensity would increase the absorption.     

Optical bistability via quantum interference from incoherent pumping and spontaneous emission

We theoretically investigate the optical bistability (OB) in a V-type three-level atomic system confined in a unidirectional ring cavity via incoherent pumping field. It is shown that the threshold of optical bistability can be controlled by the rate of an incoherent pumping field and by interference mechanism arising from the spontaneous emission and incoherent pumping field. We demonstrate that the optical bistability converts to optical multi-stability (OM) by the quantum interference mechanism.     

Controlling the optical bistability and transmission coefficient in a four-level atomic medium

A novel four level atomic configuration is proposed for controlling the optical bistability and transmission coefficient with application on all-optical switching. Two circularly polarized components from a weak linearly-polarized probe beam are interacted separately by two transitions of this medium. A coherent coupling field has derived another atomic transition. It is demonstrated that the transmission coefficient of two orthogonally polarized beams at different frequencies can be achieved by adjusting the magnitude of the external magnetic field. It is found that the threshold of the optical bistability can be controlled by magnitude of the external magnetic field. Also, it is shown that optical bistability can be converted to optical multistability by switching the two orthogonally polarized beams.     

Optical multistability in three-level atoms inside an optical ring cavity

Optical multistability in an optical ring cavity filled with a collection of three-level Lambda-type rubidium atoms has been experimentally demonstrated. The observed multistability is very sensitive to the induced atomic coherence in the system and can evolve from a normal bistable behavior with the change of the coupling field as well as the atomic number density. The underlying mechanism for the formation of such multistability is also discussed.     

非线性吸收诱导掺镱光纤激光器中的光学双稳

研究了在掺镱光纤激光器中观察到的光学双稳态现象.激光信号光和驻留泵浦光的双稳特性来源于激光器在小信号和增益饱和两种情况下,掺镱光纤对信号的非线性吸收导致的激光器内腔非线性损耗.同时分析了把泵浦光中的光学双稳行为通过分叉的腔结构扩展到切换式双波长光纤激光器的可行性.     

High contrast all-optical diode based on direction-dependent optical bistability within asymmetric ring cavity

We propose a simple all-optical diode which is comprised of an asymmetric ring cavity containing a two-level atomic ensemble. Attributed to spatial symmetry breaking of the ring cavity, direction-dependent optical bistability is obtained in a classical bistable system. Therefore, a giant optical non-reciprocity is generated, which guarantees an all-optical diode with a high contrast up to 22 d B. Furthermore, its application as an all-optical logic AND gate is also discussed.     

Tunable double-beam optical bistability in an asymmetric double quantum-well system

We have proposed a scheme for double-beam optical bistability in a tunnel-coupled asymmetric double quantum-well driven by two optical fields circulating inside two independently unidirectional ring cavities. In contrast to the single-cavity case where single-photon saturated absorption and self Kerr-nonlinearity are dominant, the two-photon absorption and cross phase modulation can be enhanced via tunneling induced interference and have an important influence to the formation of bistability. The bistable behavior can be controlled effectively via the system parameters such as the input and detuning of control field, the detuning of the probe field, Fano interference strength and cooperation parameter. Furthermore, the proposed scheme has the ability to manipulate the outputs of two optical cavities simultaneously. Due to the flexible design of semiconductor quantum well, our scheme is more practical than atomic system, therefore it can be utilized to achieve dual all-optical switching which has application in optical communication and computing.     

Controlling the optical bistability and multistability in a two-level pumped-probe system

We study the behavior of the optical bistability (OB) and multistability (OM) in a two-level pumped-probe atomic system by means of a unidirectional ring cavity. We show that the optical bistability in a two-level atomic system can be controlled by adjusting the intensity of the pump field and the detuning between two fields. We find that applying the pumping field decreases the threshold of the optical bistability.     

Tunable interaction-free all-optical switching in a five-level atom-cavity system

A scheme is proposed for tunable all-optical switching based on the double-dark states in a five-level atom-cavity system. In the scheme, the output signal light of the reflection and the transmission channels can be switched on or off by manipulating the control field. When the control light is coupled to the atom-cavity system, the input signal light is reflected by the cavity. Thus, there is no direct coupling between the control light and the signal light. Furthermore, the position of the double-dark states can be changed by adjusting the coherent field, and,thus, the switching in our scheme is tunable. By presenting the numerical calculations of the switching efficiency,we show that this type of the interaction-free all-optical switching can be realized with high switching efficiency.     

Tunable all-optical bistability in a semiconductor quantum dot damped by a phase-dependent reservoir

We propose a method of frequency and phase control of optical bistability in a unidirectional ring cavity containing a semiconductor structure which is characterized as a ladder three-level system. The system interacts with a coherent probe field, and a control field which consists of a strong coherent field and a weak amplitude-fluctuating stochastic field. A perturbative solution of the master equation of the system allows to eliminate the stochastic field and provides a physical picture in terms of correlation properties of the stochastic field. We find that the bistable response can be modified strongly by means of the amplitude, the frequency and the phase of the stochastic field. In order to illustrate the feasibility of the results, we use parameter values corresponding to an semiconductor quantum dot (QD). This investigation may be used to optimize and control the optical switching process in the QD solid-state system, which is much more practical than that in atomic systems.     

Controlling the optical bistability in a Λ-type atomic system via incoherent pump field

We investigated optical bistability (OB) and the absorption properties of a weak probe field in a three-level Λ-type atomic system confined in a unidirectional ring cavity via incoherent pump field. We found that the threshold of OB and the probe field absorption can be controlled by the rate of incoherent pump field. No laser field was used in the pumping processes.     

Plasmonic all-optical bistable device based on nematic liquid crystal

Low-power all-optical bistable liquid crystal (LC) devices are reported in which surface plasmons propagate along a metallic grating. The threshold switching illumination was 1.4 mW/mm² in the device with the twisted-nematic LC cell. This is a lower value than for all-optical bistable devices reported previously. This low-power bistability device can be used in two-dimensional optical memories or spatial light modulators.     

Dynamical properties of DIT based all-optical switch

In this work, we investigate dynamical properties of a DIT based all-optical switch for different cases of multilevel quantum dot added into photonic crystal optical cavity. Dynamic operation of optical switch is calculated and investigated by solving the Heisenberg motion equation for atom-like transition operators of inserted quantum dot into the cavity. As an example a dynemic equation has been calculated for 3, 4 and 5-levels nanocrystals are studied numerically. Transmitted optical field is studied for a train of step pulses as the control field to obtain switching behavior. Finally optical transient behavior of the proposed optical switch is evaluated and optimized to operate fast.