Optical bistability in a fiber ring cavity with synchronous pulsed pump: anomalous and normal dispersion

Abstract

Passive fiber cavities are basic nonlinear optical systems that are described by simple models - however they have a rich spectrum of complex behaviors (optical bistability, period-doubling bifurcations, chaos, modulational instability). From a practical point of view their study would have direct implications in the understanding of more complex cavity-based optical devices such as fiber lasers, Fabry-Perot lasers or APM lasers. Moreover, passive fiber cavities have potential applications in telecommunications as ultra-short pulse generators and as optical memories using their bistable behavior. This work is a contribution to the study of this bistable behavior with pulsed input, so that the device studied could be used for pulsed optical memory storage.