OPTICAL BISTABILITY ASSOCIATED WITH SURFACE-PLASMON POLARITON EXCITATION

We have theoretically analysed the optical bistability due to the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SP's) in samples, prism/metal film/nonlinear optic medium and prism/gap material/metal film/non-linear optic medium, where the non-linear optic medium has an intensity-dependent refractive index. We considered two cases, i.e. non-linearity along the propagation direction of SP's and along the normal to the interface. In the former case, the critical input power for the optical bistability was too high to allow experimental observation, while it was reasonably low for the latter case.