Optical bistability in reflection from multilayer metal-dielectric structure with Kerr nonlinearity

Both static and dynamic characteristics of light reflected from a specially designed multilayer metal-dielectric structure with Kerr nonlinearity have been studied in this work. Various regimes of nonlinear reflection from the structure have been demonstrated, including bistable switching between low and high reflection states, which occurs at low intensity of the incident light due to a significant enhancement in the optical field in the nonlinear layer under conditions of total internal reflection. This nonlinear structure has been proposed to use as an optically controlled intracavity laser modulator.