Abstract

Wysin et al¹ suggested that the local field enhancement near a metal surface which occurs if surface plasmons are excited in a metal film, can be useful for observing optical bistability arising from the nonlinearity of the Kerr medium. Other geometrical arrangements² have also been suggested. These studies assume plane waves in the nonlinear medium and use the Fresnel formulae for reflection and refraction from a layered medium but with linear refractive index replaced by the nonlinear refractive index. This assumes that the fields in the medium are homogeneous. However if surface plasmons are excited, then the fields are inhomogeneous and one has the problem of reflection and refraction from an inhomogeneous layered medium. The inhomogeneity is to be determined self consistently. Thus a proper treatment of optical bistability with surface plasmons should use the nonlinear solutions of the wave equation in Kerr medium. This is what we do in this paper.

© 1985 Optical Society of America