Exact analytical solutions for the steady-state transmission and reflection characteristics of a nonlinear Fabry-Perot resonator applicable to bistable optical devices are derived. The resonator consists of a Kerr-like nonlinear film sandwiched by reflection mirrors made of a quarter-wave dielectric stack. An equivalent mirrorless model has been introduced to facilitate the analysis. For both positive and negative nonlinear coefficients, the rigorous solutions have been simply expressed in terms of Jacobian elliptic functions.

The intensity-dependent transmission characteristics of an Ag+Na+ ion-exchanged glass waveguide with a nematic liquid crystal MBBA cover have been investigated experimentally using an Ar+ laser. It is found that the transmission characteristics of the TE1 mode are strongly influenced by temperature. Optical bistability has been observed at a particular temperature. Such the strong temperature dependence is believed to be brought by an increase in ordinary refractive index of the MBBA cover due to temperature rise.

We present an experimental and theoretical study of multiple diffraction rings of a cw Ar+ laser beam from a nitrobenzene solution of BDN (bis-(4-dimethylaminodithiobenzil)-nickel) caused by the spatial self-phase modulation. We examine in detail the effect of the intensity and phase shift profiles of the beam in the nonlinear medium by comparing the measured ring patterns with the theoretical results based on the Fraunhofer diffraction. Although the thickness of the sample is only 180 µm in our experiment, it is found that the intensity and phase shift profiles are broadened owing to the self-defocusing effect. It is also found that the phase shift profile is further broadened by the thermal diffusion. These two effects become remarkable when the focused beam is used.

This paper presents a simple numerical method for calculating the stationary transmission and reflection characteristics of a variety of nonlinear Fably-Perot resonators. In nonlinear media, Maxwell's equations are directly solved by using a numerical integration of complex variables. The input-output characteristics of the Kerr-like nonlinear film without reflection mirrors and with multilayer mirrors have been calculated to demonstrate the usefulness and versatility of the proposed method and to find out resonator configurations exhibiting optical bistability at low incident-power levels. The effects of saturation in the nonlinear permittivity on the input-output characteristics have also been investigated. It has been found that a single nonlinear film with oblique incidence exhibits optical bistability without using reflection mirrors even if the refractive index of the film is low. This offers a simple method for measuring third-order nonlinearities of optical materials.