A new theory to study the behavior of a grating ruled on a Kerr nonlinear medium and lighted by a high energy laser is presented. It is shown that the use of a suitable electromagnetic resonance, namely the guided wave resonance which can be supported by a dielectric coated grating or a corrugated waveguide, can lead to a very high enhancement of the local field and of he, nonlinearities of the medium. Under such conditions, the new nonlinear electromagnetic theory we have developed shows that, in a particular range of incidence, such a device has two possible values for its zero order (reflected) efficiency and determines the critical incident power to achieve bistability. The interest of such a bistable component is its low switching time and threshold. The grating coupler component has, contrary to the prism coupler device, the advantage of its planar geometry.

Date Published: 12 December 1984
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 0503, Application, Theory, and Fabrication of Periodic Structures, DiffractionGratings, and Moire Phenomena II, (12 December 1984); doi: 10.1117/12.944835

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0503:
Application, Theory, and Fabrication of Periodic Structures, DiffractionGratings, and Moire Phenomena II
Jeremy M. Lerner, Editor(s)