Interaction between opposite waves and optical bistability in nonlinear randomly inhomogeneous heterogeneous media

An analysis is made of the main laws governing the propagation of opposite waves in a randomly inhomogeneous medium with a cubic refraction nonlinearity with respect to the field, allowing for interference. It is shown that, in spite of modulation of the optical intensity as a result of interference between the opposite waves, almost complete bleaching of a heterogeneous medium can be achieved for fairly large scattering particles. An analysis is made of an optical resonator filled with a randomly inhomogeneous nonlinear medium and the conditions for bistability are determined. It is established that a considerably lower Q factor than in similar devices using nonlinear absorbers is sufficient to achieve bistability in this resonator.