| 摘要 |
There is provided a bistable element in which not only can miniaturization be further carried out in comparison with a conventional bistable element, but also it is possible to obtain a further wide bistable hysteresis window. The bistable element 100 includes: a multi-mode interference optical waveguide 1 provided on a substrate 10, and having two ports formed in one end face thereof, and one port formed in the other end face; a first group of optical waveguides 2 provided on the substrate 10, and including two optical waveguides (a first optical waveguide 2a and a second optical waveguide 2b), each of which has one end face connected to a corresponding port formed in the one end face 1a of the multi-mode interference optical waveguide 1; and a second group of optical waveguides 3 provided on the substrate 10, and including one optical waveguide, which has one end face connected to a corresponding port formed in the other end face 1b of the multi-mode interference optical waveguide 1, wherein the multi-mode interference optical waveguide 1 includes a saturable absorbing region in which saturation in an amount of absorbed light is caused by the fact that an absorbing coefficient is reduced as an intensity of incident light becomes larger. |
