Abstract

We present numerical and experimental evidences of Rössler chaos in the response of BOITAL trilayer systems. BOITAL devices are opto-thermal bistable cavities in which the absorption occurs localized in the input mirror and the spacer is made of transparent thermo optic materials [1]. In the case of multilayer spacers of alternatively opposite thermo-optic materials, the competing phase-shift contributions of the various layers are affected by different time delays according to the relative position with respect to the localized heat source and, in this way, it is possible to have self-sustained oscillations and other sorts of instabilities in the response of the system [2-4]. A remarkable feature in the dynamics of such systems is the fact that their effective dimension is determined by the number of layers in the spacer and, therefore, they permit the analysis of gradual complexity [6]. Another remarkable features are the easy occurrence of homoclinic bifurcations in their response and the really good agreement between experiments and numerical simulation by integration of either the corresponding partial differential equations or a simplified ODE’s model of order equal to the number of layers [6].

© 1992 Optical Society of America