We present a new iterative approach to obtain the electric field from the displacement field for a chiral medium with Kerr nonlinearity. In a study recently reported [P. Tran, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 16, 70 (1999)], this is done by a Newton–Raphson root-finding approach, which requires the initial guess to be near the solution. The new approach eliminates this requirement, and therefore it is more robust. We also study an all-optical switch using a chiral nonlinear thin-film Bragg reflector with two defect layers. This switch has a lower switching threshold than one using a perfect Bragg reflector. Since the switching operation is dependent on the shifting of the defect mode and not on the band edge (as in the case of a perfect multilayer structure), it should be less susceptible to manufacturing errors.

© 2002 Optical Society of America

[Optical Society of America ]

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