Analysis of optical instability in a double-coupler nonlinear fiber ring resonator

Instability in a double-coupler nonlinear fiber ring resonator has been investigated by using a Linear stability analysis. Numerical results show that although Ikeda instability appears in the positive-branch regions, it hardly interrupts bistable device application since the threshold power for instability is one or two orders of magnitude larger than the switching power for optical bistability. By the transient analysis when an optical pulse with a finite pulse duration is incident, we moreover confirm that period-doubling oscillations, being one of characteristics of Ikeda instability, take place in the unstable state. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.