Appl Phys A
DOI 10.1007/s00339-010-6200-4
Optical multistability in 1D photonic crystals
with nonlinear Thue–Morse structure
E. Lotfi · K. Jamshidi-Ghaleh · F. Moslemi ·
H. Masalehdan
Received: 8 January 2010 / Accepted: 3 December 2010
© Springer-Verlag 2011
Abstract A 1D photonic crystal structure contains 16 lay-
ers, 8 common dielectric layers and 8 layers with nonlin-
ear medium, with an arrangement similar to the 5th genera-
tion, Thue–Morse multilayer is presented. The properties of
photonics band gap, field distribution and optical multista-
bility are investigated. On the band gap, 5 resonant modes
is observed. On the behavior of output intensity versus in-
put intensity around resonant frequencies, the multistability
response observed. When the frequency of incident field is
close to the resonant frequency, the threshold intensity of
multistability is decreased.
1 Introduction
Photonic crystals are arrays of materials with different op-
tical characteristics, which have been considered as one of
E. Lotfi
Faculty of Bonab Engineering and Technology, Bonab, Iran
K. Jamshidi-Ghaleh
Physics Department, Azarbaijan University of Tarbiat Moallem,
Tabriz, Iran
F. Moslemi
Physics Department, Islamic Azad University, Gogan Branch,
Gogan, Iran
H. Masalehdan ()
Physics Engineering (Optics-Laser) Department,
Bonab Islamic Azad University Young Research Club, Bonab,
Iran
e-mail: H.Masalehdan@Gmail.com
H. Masalehdan
Applied Physics Department, Smithsonian Institute, Washington,
DC, 20013-7012, USA
the major research topics due to their electromagnetic ap-
plications and unique properties [1–3]. Different structures
of the photonic crystals have already been considered as the
periodic and aperiodic arrays. Different kinds of materials
are used in designing of the photonic crystals such as the
typical linear and nonlinear dielectric materials [1–4], met-
als [5], metamaterials (materials with negative refractive in-
dex) [6], superconductors [7], dispersive media [8], materi-
als with gradient refractive index [9], etc. Photonic crystals
show unique features based on various structural arrange-
ments, materials used on the structure and the number of
underlying structural layers.
One of the newly introduced structures in photonic crys-
tals with aperiodic arrays is Thue–Morse structures [10].
It has different successive generations in different arrange-
ments and various numbers of layers (for instance, the 2nd
generation appears as AB, the 3rd generation as ABBA, the
4th generation as ABBABAAB and the 5th generation ap-
pears as ABBABAABBAABABBA in which A and B are
typical dielectric materials).
In this work, we propose a new photonic crystal struc-
ture multilayer similar to the 5th generation Thue–Morse
multilayer (5GTM) structure in layer’s arrangement but dif-
ferent in the aspect that all B layers are replaced with a
nonlinear medium. Figure 1 shows a schematic view of
the proposed photonic crystal structure. One of the major
characteristics exhibited by photonic crystals containing a
nonlinear medium is the ability of displaying optically bista-
bility and multistability [11], i.e., for a single input intensity
there exist two or more output intensities. Bistable optical
devices have been applied in many optoelectronic applica-
tions such as photo-memories, photo-diodes, photo-switches
and so on. Achieving a low intensity threshold of bistability
of multistability is a major objective for researchers nowa-
days. We will show that the introduced photonic crystal not
 E. Lotfi et al.

only presents a bistable operating feature but also a mul- tion direction (normal to layers surface) and enforce the
tistable property around and near the resonance-mode fre- boundary conditions dominant over the fields in the lay-
quencies appearing in the energy gap. ers interface, the characteristic transmission matrix for
the linear and nonlinear media would be as the follow-
ing:
2 Theoretical model  
cos(kA dA ) −i sin(k A d A )
MA = qA (1)
In Fig. 1 we consider an electromagnetic wave at TE −iqA sin(kA dA ) cos(kA dA )
polarization normally incident on the photonic crystal
structure. If we assume the z-axis to be the propaga-

 
k0 (k− /k0 ) exp(−ik+ dB ) + (k+ /k0 ) exp(ik− dB ) exp(−ik+ dB ) − exp(ik− dB )
MB = (2)
k+ + k− (k− k+ /k02 )[exp(−ik+ dB ) − exp(ik− dB )] (k+ /k0 ) exp(−ik+ dB ) + (k− /k0 ) exp(ik− dB )

√ √ √ √
where kA = (ω/c) εA μA , qA = εA / μA and k+ , k− where n0 is the refractive index of air. For the transmis-
are propagating constants of the forward and the backward sion intensity of Ut , the incident intensity is given by Uin =
propagation waves defined as: Ut /T .
  
√ √
k± = k0 εB μB 1 + χ (3) |ξ± |2 + 2|ξ∓ |2 (3)

in which k0 = ω/c and χ (3) is the third-order nonlinearity

coefficient and ξ± is the range of the forward and the back-
ward propagating waves. The overall transfer matrix for the
5GTM multilayer structure in question is obtained from (1)
and (2):

M = MA (MB )2 MA MB (MA )2 (MB )2 (MA )2 MB MA

× (MB )2 MA . (4)

Hence, after having computed the entries transfer metrics

elements, mij , the related transmission coefficient from the
Fig. 2 The linear transmission of the 5GTM (red) and the correspond-
photonic crystal structure is given by: ing periodic structure (AB)8 (blue) with the same number of layers
2
2n0
T =
(5)
(m11 + m12 n0 )n0 + (m21 + m22 n0 )

Fig. 3 The distribution of the electric field intensity inside the 5GTM
Fig. 1 Schematic of the 5GTM multilayer. Here A and B are typical structure on two resonating frequencies of 38.25 THz (curve 1, blue
linear dielectric and nonlinear media respectively color) and 47.36 9 THz (curve 2, red color)
Optical multistability in 1D photonic crystals with nonlinear Thue–Morse structure

Fig. 4 (a) The behavior of

transmission intensity versus
incident intensity at three
different frequencies of 45, 45.8
and 48.88 THz close to the
47.36 THz resonant mode
frequency. (b) The behavior of
transmission intensity over
incident intensity in the
frequency at the 45.8 THz and
optical thickness of λ/2

3 Numerical calculations
In numerical computations, the layer A is chosen as a di-
electric medium with the dielectric constant of εA = 5.29
and B is a nonlinear medium with ε = εB + χ (3) |E(z)|2 , in
which εB is the linear dielectric constant of the medium cal-
culated to be 1.71 and χ (3) is the third-order nonlinear sus-
ceptibility. The optical thickness of both the layers is λ/4,
√ √
i.e. εA μA dA = εB μB dB = λ/4 where λ is the wave-
length of the incident field in vacuum and is supposed to
be 7.8422 μm. Both of the A and B layers are assumed to
be non-magnetic: μA = μB = 1.
Transmission spectrum of the proposed structure is pre-
sented in the Fig. 2 (curve 1, red color). To compare the
transmission spectrum of the corresponding periodic struc-
ture of type, the (AB)8 with the same number of layers is
also presented by curve 2 (blue color). It can be seen that
there are fundamental differences in the band-gap region of
the proposed structure compared to the periodic one. First,
the gap region is widened and the second one is the ap-
pearance of the several sharp peaks, the so-called resonate
modes. These resonate peaks are placed from the left to
the right at 29.15, 35.68, 38.25, 40.83 and 47.36 THz fre-
quencies respectively. The frequency of the incident wave
is chosen the same as the central resonant mode frequency
(38.25 THz).
The dynamic displacement of the band-gap edge and
strong field localization at the defect modes [12] are two
physical mechanisms that appear at the peaks. In order to
determine how these resonate modes are created, the dis-
tribution of the field strength over distance in direction of
layers is carried out using the transmission matrix. This dis-
tribution is graphically shown in Fig. 3 for two resonating
frequencies of 38.25 and 47.36 THz.
Figure 4 shows the behavior of the transmission intensity
versus the incident intensity from the 5GTM structure on
three frequencies close to the resonant mode frequency of
47.36 THz, labeled by curve 1: 45 THz, curve 2: 45.8 THz
and curve 3: 48.88 THz. On all of the three frequencies, the
bistability behavior is observable. For frequency closer to
the incident field frequency, curve 3, lower threshold inten-
sity for the optical bistability is achievable.
Figure 4b shows the behavior of the output intensity ver-
sus of the incident intensity for the case that the optical
thickness of nonlinear layers (B) is the half of the wave-
length, λ/2. It can be seen that the number of metastability’s
increases while the threshold intensity decreases compared
to the former state (Fig. 4a, curve 2).
4 Conclusions
The characteristics of the energy gap, field distribution,
and optical bistability and multistability of photonic crys-
tals with a similar structure to the 5GTM multilayer con-
sisting of 8 nonlinear layers are studied in this work.
In the band-gap region of this structure, 5 resonating
modes are observed. The behavior of the optical multista-
bility is seen in the nearby of the resonance frequency.
At those frequencies, the threshold intensity of the op-
tical multistability is decreased and also by increasing
the thickness of the nonlinear media, the number of the
multistabilities decreases while the intensity threshold de-
creases.
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