Generation of optical bistability in a fiber Fabry-Perot resonator using mode-locked picosecond pulses

We demonstrate the generation of optical bistability in a Fabry-Perot resonator made of a fused-silica single-mode polarization-maintaining fiber. To suppress the undesirable generation of stimulated Brillouin scattering, a pulse train from a mode-locked and Q-switched picosecond laser was used as an incident pulse and the fiber resonator was synchronized with it. We observed first-order bistability, higher order bistability, and power limiting depending on the initial cavity detuning and mirror reflectivity. The obtained results could be well explained by our previous transient analysis based on an iterative method.