Abstract

There has recently been substantial attention to various optical systems that exhibit bistability and differential gain and thus realize the functions of optical switching, optical memory, binary logic, optical transistor, limiting, pulse shaping, pulse generation, and so on.¹ We describe that by means of the two newly proposed schemes: (a) output-feedback pumping and (b) output-feedback loss modulation; a conventional laser exhibiting only second-order phase transition behavior generally displays the nonequilibrium analog of first-order phase transition, that is, the bistability. The optical bistability based on the first scheme was demonstrated experimentally for the first time known to us using a semiconductor diode laser and a photodetector.

© 1984 Optical Society of America