摘要: We study tunable optical multistability in a single cavity mode coupled with
multi-level atoms under strong collective coupling conditions. Two or three
separate atomic transitions are excited with appropriate input cavity field
andmultiple polariton eigenstates are produced simultaneously. We show that in
the nonlinear excitation regime with a moderate input field, optical
multistability is created and can be manipulated by a weak control field
coupled to the atoms from free space. The threshold and multistability shape
can be tuned by system parameters in a broad range. Under certain conditions, a
bistability region can be splitted into two bistability regions due to
destructive quantum interference induced by theweak control field.. The
proposed scheme can be used as a multistate passive optical device, and is
useful for applications of multi-state all-optical logic devices and
all-optical communication networks.