Abstract

Nonlinear optical properties of microstructures immersed in a linear dielectric are investigated. The microstructures are assumed to be composed of simple saturable two-level atoms. The local field corrections are included in a self-consistent manner leading to multiple solutions for the absorptive part of the dielectric constant of the microstructure as noted earlier by Chemla and Miller.¹ For a given structure we use the effective medium theory and average over the random positions of the grains to obtain the effective medium dielectric constant in the quasistatic limit (λ ≪ grain size) as a function of the volume fraction of the grains. The results exhibit sharp hysteresis effects. However, in the study of the propagation in the medium these effects are modified considerably. While defined switches are observed in the mean field at certain points in the medium where the absorption jumps from the upper to lower branch, the optical intensity undergoes only a change of slope.

© 1987 Optical Society of America