Analysis and optimization of optical bistability in one-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystal with (HL)(D)(LH) and (LH)(D)(HL) structures

Although one-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystal (1D-NPC) has been widely studied, there is no comprehensive analysis on decreasing the bistability threshold power.In this paper, conditions required to create bistability have been specified for two types of structures of alternative high and low refractive index layers and defect layers with Kerr nonlinearity effect, in the order of (HL)^p(D)^q(LH)^p and (LH)^p(D)^q(HL)^p, where L and H denote low and high refractive index layers, respectively, D stands for the defect layers, p is the number of LH or HL layers and q is the number of defect layers.One of the essentials for the bistability is appropriate shifts of frequency of the defect mode, so the effect of the order of layer's arrangement in (1D-NPC) structures have been studied. Different structures have been introduced and the best structure for the lowest bistability threshold power has been proposed. Nonlinear finite-difference time-domain (NFDTD) in C++ has been employed for simulation.