Optical Bistability

Conditions and Limitations in Intrinsic Optical Bistability.- Semiclassical and Quantum Statistical Dressed Mode Description of Optical Bistability.- Instabilities in Optical Bistability: Transform from cw to Pulsed.- Bistable Systems in Nonlinear Optics.- Bistability in Irradiated Josephson Junctions.- Optical Bistability Experiments and Mean-Field Theories.- Optical Bistability in a GaAs Etalon.- Optical Bistability and Multi-Stability in the Semiconductor InSb.- Optical Bistability Effects in a Dye Ring Laser.- Microwave Dispersive Bistability in a Confocal Fabry-Perot Microwave Cavity.- Bistability and Phase Transitions of Nuclear Spin Systems.- Transient Phenomena in Bistable Devices.- Analytic Description of Multiphoton Optical Bistability in a Ring Cavity.- Active Two-Beam Optical Bistability.- Absorptive and Dispersive Bistability for a Doppler-Broadened Medium in a Fabry-Perot: Steady-State Description.- The Role of Phases in the Transient Dynamics of Nonlinear Interferometers.- Frequency Switching in Dispersive Optical Bistability.- Dispersive Optical Bistability with Fluctuations.- Fluctuations and Transitions in the Absorptive Optical Bistability.- Short- and Long-Time Evolution in Absorptive Optical Bistability.- Cooperation in an Optical-Bistability System.- The Driven Dicke Model and Its Macroscopic Extension: Bistability or Bifurcation?.- Optical Bistability Based upon Atomic Correlation in a Small Volume.- Complex Order Parameters in Quantum Optics First-Order Phase Transition Analogies.- Theory of Plane Wave Reflection and Refraction by the Nonlinear Interface.- Optical Properties of Nonlinear Interfaces.- Applications of the Generalized P-Representation to Optical Bistability.- Effects of Propagation, Transverse Mode Coupling and Diffraction on Nonlinear Light Pulse Evolution.- Panel Discussion.- List of Contributors.