Optical bistability in reflective fiber gratings

Optical bistability in a nonlinearly reflective fiber grating through the mode coupling between the LP₀₁ and counter propagation LP₀₂ modes (i,e., the reflective LP₀₁&rlhar2;LP₀₂ mode converter) is investigated by using the coupled-mode theory. Both the transmissive and the reflective properties of this nonlinear device are analyzed, which show that the output-versus-input relation exhibits the optical bistability. The switching power and the bistable hysteresis performances are also discussed. In addition, the comparison between the nonlinearly reflective mode converter (LP₀₁&rlhar2;LP₀₂) and the nonlinear fiber Bragg grating reflector (i,e., the LP₀₁ and counter-propagation LP₀₁ modes) is also presented. It is shown that the former has much lower switching power than the latter