Optical bistability of semiconductor microcavities in the strong-coupling regime

We propose a mechanism for achieving optical bistability in semiconductor heterostructures. In contrast to the well-known refractive shift of the Fabry-Perot mode in macroscopic resonators, we consider the bleaching of the exciton Rabi splitting in strong-coupling microcavities and prove that this nonlinear process leads to an optically bistable behavior. Through a model based on the transfer-matrix formalism, we predict the dependence of this effect on specific material parameters and on the nature of the cavity. Numerical calculations are carried out for quantum well embedded cavities and the possibility of room-temperature bistable operation is also discussed.