Analysis of polarization bistability of phase-shifted DFB laser due to TM light injection

As a method of high-bit-rate optical processing, the TM light injection-induced optical polarization bistability using Fabry-Perot type laser diodes has been experimentally demonstrated and theoretically analyzed. In these studies, although switching times less than 1 ns both for switch-up and switch-down have been reported, both of the TE and TM outputs exhibit longitudinal multimode spectra. In practical processing systems, a dynamically stable operation of the polarization switching is considered to be essential. It is the purpose of this paper to present an analytical study of the TM light injection-induced polarization bistability using a lambda /4-shifted distributed feedback (DFB) laser model and to describe the detailed picture of the mechanism. >