Eur. Phys. J. D (2012) 66: 70
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2012-20362-8

Regular Article

Optical polarization multistability in reflection in a semi-infinite isotropic nonlinear Kerr medium

¹ Department of Physics, Udai Pratap Autonomous College, 221002 Varanasi, India
² Department of Physics, University of Allahabad, 211002 Allahabad, India

^a e-mail: dksingh@rediffmail.com

Received: 15 June 2011
Received in final form: 10 December 2011
Published online: 27 March 2012

Abstract

We study nonlinear interaction of counter-propagating plane light waves in a semi-infinite isotropic lossless nonlinear Kerr medium and report existence of several regions of optical-polarization-multistability. The counter-propagating waves may be produced by normal reflection of an incident beam by a mirror in the nonlinear Kerr medium. We obtain nonlinear coupled differential equations for Stokes parameters of the two beams and solve them following the method of Prakash et al. [Mod. Phys. Lett. B 14, 47 (2000)] and the boundary conditions at the mirror. We find that, for the same incident intensity and for the same polarization state of the incident beam, output beam may exist in several stable polarization states.