Controlling the Optical Bistability via External Magnetic Field in a Coherent Atomic Medium

Abstract

A four-level inverse Y-type atomic system with a microwave-driven field contained in a unidirectional ring cavity is proposed for controlling the optical bistability behavior with application on all-optical switching. Two circularly polarized components from a weak linearly-polarized probe beam are interacted separately by two transitions of this medium. A coherent coupling field derived another atomic transition. Under the steady state condition, we can control the occurrence of the optical bistability by modulating different parameters, such as the probe detuning ( ), the electronic cooperation parameter (C), the magnitude of electromagnetic field (B), and left- or right- handed circular polarized beams. Also, it is found that the stable output field of the optical cavity can be controlled by adjusting the intensity of the input field. It is demonstrated that the transmission coefficient of two orthogonally polarized beams at different frequencies can be achieved by adjusting the magnitude of the external magnetic field. It is found that the threshold of the optical bistability can be controlled by the magnitude of the external magnetic field. Also, it is shown that the optical bistability can be converted to optical multistability by switching the two orthogonally polarized beams. In this paper, in the case of the steady-state and transient response, we investigated the effect of external magnetic field on optical bistability of a four-level atomic system in the presence of strong coherent laser beam. Here, a laser probe signal consists of two left- and right- handed circular polarized beams which are interacted by two different transitions. The optical system provides a new experimental method to test optical bistability theory.