NONLINEAR FIBER FABRY-PEROT RESONATOR USING THERMOOPTIC EFFECT

A new nonlinear fiber-based Fabry-Perot resonator (FFPR) is proposed for bistable optical devices in fiber optics. The device is constructed by embedding a metal-dielectric Fabry-Perot resonator containing a thermo-optic material into a single-mode fiber. The transmission and attenuation characteristics of the linear FFPR have been analyzed under Gaussian-beam approximation by the method of plane-wave expansion. The effects of the mirror separation, the thickness of the metal mirror, the coating number of the multilayer mirror, and the spacer index have been investigated numerically. Moreover optical bistability in the nonlinear FFPR has been investigated by the graphical solution. It has been found that the input-output characteristics of the proposed FFPR are strongly affected by the angular divergence of the beam in the spacer. Optical bistability has been demonstrated experimentally at the milliwatt-power levels by using a 1.3-mum diode laser and single-mode fibers.