Bistable output of an optically pumped vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser

We report optically bistable output of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). The GaAs–AlGaAs VCSEL was optically pumped with a cw Ti:sapphire laser that was tuned near a cavity resonance of the VCSEL. Using a simple Fabry–Perot model, we demonstrate that the bistability is primarily dispersive and not absorptive. Although the threshold power is high because of poor sample quality, the contrast is very large; in fact, it approaches infinity.