Tunable Bistability in Photonic Multilayers Doped by Unmagnetized Plasma and Coupled Nonlinear Defects

The bistability behavior of photonic multilayers doped by unmagnetized plasma and coupled nonlinear defects is investigated using the modified transfer matrix method. Compared with a typical single nonlinear defected layer, our proposed structure strongly reduced and individually modulated bistability threshold values. Without changing the configuration of the photonic multilayers, the plasma density and collision frequency of the middle linear plasma layer can adjust the switch-up and switch-down status, respectively, while the incident angle modulates these statuses. The proposed combined structure featuring tunable bistability has potential applications in the design of new types of millimeter wave devices, such as isolators.