Controllable optical bistability in a three-mode optomechanical system with a membrane resonator**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11504258 and 11347181), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province, China (Grant No. 2014021011-1), and the Qualified Personnel Foundation of Taiyuan University of Technology, China (Grant No. tyutrc201245a).

Abstract

We study the optical bistability (OB) in a three-mode cavity optomechanical system, where an oscillating membrane of perfect reflection is inserted between two fixed mirrors of partial transmission. By investigating the behavior of steady state solutions, we find that the left and right cavities will exhibit the bistable behavior simultaneously in this optomechanical system by adjusting the left and right coupling fields. In addition, one can control the OB threshold and the width of the OB curve via adjusting the coupling strength, the detuning, and the decay rate. Moreover, we further illustrate the OB appearing in the cavity by the effective potential as a function of the position.