International Journal of Optics (Jan 2018)

Optical Bistability in a Controllable Giant Self-Kerr Nonlinear Gaseous Medium under Electromagnetically Induced Transparency and Doppler Broadening

  • Phuong Le Thi Minh,
  • Doai Le Van,
  • Khoa Dinh Xuan,
  • Bang Nguyen Huy

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/7260960
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2018

Abstract

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We study optical bistability (OB) in a controllable giant self-Kerr nonlinear atomic gaseous medium placed in a unidirectional ring cavity. The medium is coherently excited by strong controlling field and a weak probe laser field under electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Doppler broadening. In a weak field limit of the probe light, an analytic OB equation for the probe light field is derived as an analytic function of parameters of the controlling field and temperature of the medium. It is shown that OB characters can be manipulated with the parameters due to the controllable properties of the self-Kerr nonlinearity. Furthermore, enhancement of the Kerr nonlinearity reduces the switching intensity threshold and width of the OB.