Optical bistability in defective photonic multilayers doped by graphene

We study the optical bistability (OB) in photonic multilayers doped by graphene sheets, stacking two Bragg reflectors with a defect layer between the reflectors. OB stems from the nonlinear effect of graphene, so the local field of defect mode (DM) could enhance the nonlinearity and reduce the thresholds of bistability. The structure achieves the tunability of bistability due to that the DM frequency and transmittance could be modulated by the chemical potential. Bistability thresholds and interval of the two stable states could be remarkably reduced by decreasing the chemical potential. A lager Bragg periodic number could increase the localizing of field, but the graphene loss may decrease the intensity of transmission light. We have concluded an appropriate periodic number to achieve OB. The study suggests that the tunable bistability of the structure could be used for all-optical switches in optical communication systems.