Optical bistability in semiconductor microcavities in the nondegenerate parametric oscillation regime: analogy with the optical parametric oscillator

TL;DR

This paper reports the observation of optical bistability in semiconductor microcavities under nondegenerate parametric oscillation, demonstrating hysteresis behavior and drawing an analogy with optical parametric oscillators.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of optical bistability in microcavities and establishes a theoretical analogy with optical parametric oscillators.

Findings

Hysteresis cycle observed in nonlinear emission

Optical bistability demonstrated in microcavities

System behavior explained by simple theoretical model

Abstract

We report the observation of optical bistability in a microcavity pumped at the "magic angle". Experimental evidence is given in the form of a hysteresis cycle of the nonlinear emission as a function of the pump intensity or the position of the excitation spot. The results can be well understood with simple theoretical considerations that underline the fundamental analogy between our system and an optical parametric oscillator.