Optical polarization multistability

A theoretical investigation is made of the polarization characteristics of the optical polarization and amplitude multistability of a Fabry–Perot interferometer filled with a nonlinear resonant medium. In the case of linear polarization of the incident radiation it is shown that an amplitude hysteresis differs considerably from a hysteresis predicted by a scalar theory; moreover, the degree of polarization exhibits a hysteresis. A calculation is made of the critical input intensity of elliptically polarized radiation for which the ellipticity at the output rises strongly even when it is negligible at the input.