Effects induced by transit time on a coupled two-element optical bistable device

The authors study the effects of finite transit time, i.e. delay, on dynamics in a coupled two-element optical bistable device. Finite transit time is considered because of signal propagation between the elements. It is shown that delay can be used as a measure of crosstalk between the coupled elements and that it increases the lethargy time. Thus, many interesting, transient phenomena take place both in hysteresis and pitchfork (symmetry-breaking) regimes. Symmetry-recovering crisis originating from the collision between the unstable periodic orbit and chaotic asymmetrical solution is predicated to occur for T≈τ (T: transit time, τ: response time of nonlinear medium). It is shown that symmetry-recovering crisis results in switching failure in set-reset (S-R) flip-flop operations with a pitchfork bifurcation structure