摘要 |
A bistable element (100) comprising: a multi-mode interference optical waveguide (1), has two ports on one edge face (1a) thereof, and has one port on the other edge face (1b) thereof; a first group of optical waveguides (2), and each of which is composed of two optical waveguides each having one edge face connected to each port arranged on the one edge face (1a) side of the multi-mode interference optical waveguide (1); and a second group of optical waveguides (3), and each of which is composed of one optical waveguide having one edge face connected to each port arranged on the other edge face (1b) side of the multi-mode interference optical waveguide (1). The multi-mode interference optical waveguide (1) has a saturable absorption region (22) where the absorption coefficient is reduced to cause the saturation of the amount of absorbed light when the intensity of incident light becomes high.
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