Kerr-nonlinearity induced bistable-like parity-time phase transition in coupled waveguides

We analyze the parity-time (PT) symmetric phase in coupled two waveguides with a Kerr-type medium in between. Paying attention to the emitted field from a dipole source inside, we show that when the strength of the dipole increases, the optical Kerr effect can render a phase transition from the exact PT phase to the broken PT phase. Furthermore, a salient phenomenon of bistable-like PT phase is observed, in which the emitted field possesses a paradox between the two kinds of PT phases. We show that the physical mechanism of this bistable-like phenomenon is a globally inhomogeneous PT phase, in which different spatial regions of the whole structure can possess different PT phases (broken or exact). This study highlights the potential to manipulate the PT phase transition by using optical nonlinearity for many interesting applications.