Photorefractive flip-flop.
We demonstrate an optical flip-flop that consists of two unidirectional ring resonators that are coupled competitively through two-beam interactions in a photorefractive BaTiO(3) crystal. This crystal provides an active loss for each ring that depends on the oscillation intensity of the other. The coupled rings exhibit flip-flop bistability when the net gain, given by the product of the passive cavity losses and the gain, is greater than unity but is less than the small-signal active loss. The state of the system can be switched with an injected signal.
D Z
DZ
Anderson
C
C
Benkert
B
B
Chorbajian
A
A
Hermanns