title: Mirrorless dispersive optical bistability due to cross trapping of counterpropagating beams in sodium vapor.
abstract: We report the first observation to our knowledge of mirrorless optical bistability based on a dispersive effect, namely, cross-trapping optical bistability due to the mutual interaction of two counterpropagating beams. The phase conjugation of a probe beam generated by four-wave mixing in such a system is sensitive to the intensities of the counterpropagating beams and has been used to monitor the bistability.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tai
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Gibbs
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Peyghambarian
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mysyrowicz