Abstract

A medium with a nonlinearly increasing absorption can be in either a monostable or an intrinsically bistable mode.¹ If this medium is placed in a cavity with a round-trip time which is longer than the relaxation time of the medium, one finds in the monostable mode chaotic behavior following a Feigenbaum scenario and in the bistable mode a frequency-locked self-oscillation which follows a Farey-tree construction. ^2,3 These theoretical predictions have been verified experimentally in a hybrid experiment with a CdS crystal with a slow thermally increasing absorption and an electrooptical feedback. ⁴

© 1987 Optical Society of America