Tunable and asymmetric optical bistability of one-dimensional photonic crystals based on InSb and nonlinear materials

In this paper, one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystals (PCs) based on InSb and nonlinear materials are studied using the transmission matrix method. It is found that in the terahertz band, due to the magneto-optical characteristics of InSb, when the incident light propagates through such 1D PCs in two different directions (forward and backward propagation), an asymmetric optical bistable state can be obtained. Propagating from the forward direction, the bistable state is achieved. Spreading from the backward direction, the multistable state can be observed. Compared with the bistable threshold value for the case of forward incidence, the similar value that appeared in the multistable curve is significantly reduced. The polarization-sensitive features of the asymmetric optical bistability of the presented 1D PCs are also investigated under TM waves, which focuses on the tuning effects of incident angle, external magnetic field, temperature, and the thicknesses of the InSb and nonlinear dielectric layers on the asymmetric optical bistability. The results show that when the incident light enters from two different directions, the tailoring effects of the incident angle and thickness of the InSb layer on the bistable state are obviously different, but the tuning influences of the magnetic field, temperature, and the thickness of the nonlinear material layer on the bistable state are similar. The asymmetric optical bistability we made in this paper can be applied to multifunctional devices and nonreciprocal optical isolators.