Phonon-mediated excitonic optical bistability in polymers

For a polymer inside an optical cavity, optical multistability mediated by phonon modes and virtual exciton coupling is investigated. The cavity field, excitons, and phonon modes are treated as damped oscillators, and the equations of motion for the dynamical variables are obtained by applying Dekker's theory for dissipative systems. Steady-state results are obtained numerically for polydiacetylene [bis(p-toluene sulfonate)] with the input field frequency on or off resonance with the cavity field. The variation of the cavity-field intensity follows a reversed hysteresis loop on resonance, while it may follow either a normal or a reversed hysteresis loop off resonance depending on the course of change of the driving-field intensity at the unstable turning point. The variation is inverted when the detuning changes its sign. It is also found that the virtual excitons, phonon modes, and feedback of the cavity are all indispensable to such tristability.