Hybrid bistable devices at 10.6 µm

We present a new hybrid bistable device which depends on the frequency of a modulation carried by the output optical beam. Experiments have been carried out with a CW CO2laser at 10.6 μm wavelength and an electrooptic CdTe amplitude modulator. The necessary nonlinearity for switching was provided by the tuning characteristics of a resonant circuit. This resonant driver circuit allows application of reduced voltages on the CdTe crystal to obtain bistability. Two feedback loops have been considered using either synchronous (at 0.117 MHz) or envelope detection (at 0.853 MHz).