US Government As Represented by the Secretary of the Army

Joseph W Haus

Charles M Bowden

Ramarao Inguva

Chi C Sung

Nauzer Kalyaniwalla

A block of composite material includes a dielectric material with a dielectric constant of .epsilon..sub.d =4.66 and which is at least 4 .mu.m thick and has electrically conductive microparticles randomly distributed throughout. The composite material exhibits an optical bistability without cavity feedback. The microparticles must be nearly uniform in size and of spherical diameter much smaller than the wavelength of light in the particle. The composite, when illuminated by laser light in the range of 500 nm and of varying intensity, becomes opaque at a critical input intensity and stays opaque until the input intensity reaches a certain level both below and above the intensity at which it initially became opaque. Thus the material behaves as an optical switch and a limiter.

Fast optical switch and limiter using quantum size effect in metal grain

An optically bistable, nonlinear optical device that produces an output that follows two hysteresis loops for an optical intensity variation input at a given frequency. One hysteresis loop follows a clockwise path of development, the other follows a counterclockwise path when the input field or optical intensity is ramped to a large value and returned again to a small value. These features of the device are effectively engineered by controlling the temperature of the input and output faces of the device, allowing optical logic gating and multiplex operation.

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Schenectady, NY, United States of America

Joseph W Haus