Abstract

An optical system which exhibits two steady transmission states for the same input intensity is said to be optically bistable [1]. Here we investigate optical bistability (OB) of a dispersive system of two-level atoms enclosed in a bidirectional ring cavity. In contrast to previous analyses of dispersive OB we include the atomic centre-of-mass motion, which is allowed to evolve in a self-consistent way under the action of the counterpropagating radiation fields within the cavity.

© 2000 IEEE