Optical Bistability 2

This volume is a collection of experimental and theoretical papers presented at the international "Topical Meeting on Optical Bistability", held at the University of Rochester, June 15-17, 1983, sponsored jointly by the Air Force Office of Scientific ReƯ search; the Army Research Office; and the Optical Society of America. The Conference, which had 150 attendees, overlapped (on June 15) with the Fifth Rochester Conference on Coherence and Quantum Optics with two joint sessions. Some of the topics coverƯ ed in this volume are also treated io the Proceedings of that Conference. Since the last international conference on Optical Bistability, held in Asheville, North Carolina, June 3-5, 1980, there have been new and important fundamental advances in the field. This is borne out in papers in this volume dealing with optical chaos and period doubling bifurcations leading to chaos as well as the report of results of an experiment using a very simple system exhibiting abƯ sorptive optical bistability in a ring cavity using optically pumpƯ ed sodium atoms, which was successfully analyzed quantitatively by a simple theory. Other advances discussed here include the obƯ servation of optical bistability due to the effect of radiation pressure on one mirror of a fabry-Perot cavity. and the prediction of mirrorless intrinsic opittal bistability due to the local field correction incorporated into the Maxwell-Bloch formulation. Advances in optical bistability in semiconductors relate closer to actual device applications

Two-Level Atoms, Gases and Polarization Switching -- Optical Bistability with Two-level Atoms -- Observation of Ikeda Instabilities and Optical Bistability in an All-Optical Resonator Containing NH3 Gas -- Switching Behavior of Bistable Resonators Filled with Two-level Atoms -- Zeeman Coherence Effects in Absorptive Polarization Bistability -- Polarization Switching with J = 1/2 to J = 1/2 Atoms in a Ring Cavity -- Polarization Switching with Sodium Vapor in a Fabry-Perot -- Chaos -- Chaos and Optical Bistability: Bifurcation Structure -- Optical Bistability, Chaos in the Coherent Two-Photon Process -- Self-Pulsing, Breathing and Chaos in Optical Bistability and the Laser with Injected Signal -- Multistability, Self-Oscillation and Chaos in Nonlinear Optics -- The Physical Mechanism of Optical Instabilities -- Chaos in Optics -- Turbulence and 1/f Noise in Quantum Optics -- A Mechanism for Chaos in a Nonlinear Optical System -- Routes to Optical Turbulence in a Dispersive Ring Bistable Cavity Containing Saturable Nonlinearities -- Self-Pulsing and Chaos in Inhomogeneously Broadened Single Mode Lasers -- Connection between Ikeda Instabilities and Phase Conjugation -- Multiparameter…