title: Optical bistability that is due to mutual self-action of counterpropagating beams of light.
abstract: A new kind of optical bistability is discussed that is based on mutual self-action of light beams in a nonlinear medium. In particular, fundamentally new devices are proposed that use two counterpropagating incident beams and no reflection feedback. Self-focusing (or self-defocusing) and self-bending provide bistability with positive or negative nonlinearity.
authors.affiliation: Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Kaplan