Abstract

The effect of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) of light beams on the optical bistability (OB) phenomenon has been investigated in a three-level quantum system. In a first step, we consider a $\Lambda$-type configuration in which the coupling field is assumed as a Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) beam. It is shown that the OB strength spatially depends on the intensity profile as well as the topological charge (TC) of the light beam. In a second scheme, we apply a strong microwave field to the lower level transition and obtain an analytical expression for the OB behavior of the probe field in the presence of an LG field in the multi-photon resonance condition. We analytically obtain a generalized input–output bistability relation for the systems containing the LG beam. More complicated phase-dependent OB profiles can be obtained for higher order LG modes due to the OAM transfer and classical interference between the generated field and applied fields. The results of this paper may provide a potential application of OB in generating simultaneously reconfigurable sets of various optical logic gates in the same structure, as well as in enhancing the capacity of fast volatile bit-level optical memories.

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