Optical bistability, as the name implies, involves phenomena which can have two states which are stable. The common example is a thin semi- conductor which transmits nearly all of a light beam impinging upon it, or nearly none at all; depending upon the range of intensity of this impinging light beam. The transmission switches from low to high at a particular intensity (or small range). In addition, once switched, it tends to stay high (high transmission) even though the intensity of the impinent beam is brought below the particular switching intensity referred to just above. It will subsequently switch to a low transmission state but with a switching intensity less than that referred to for the switch from low to high. Obviously these two state devices are fascinating from both a fundamental viewpoint and from a practical viewpoint (the low is 0 and the high is 1 for a computer). Since they have historical predecessors which operate totally on electrical principles, they have been analyzed, considered for computation, and so on. These previous analysis present a pessimistic view for applications to computation. However, the optical situation is different in several respects - the nature of the signal, the way the material interacts, and some of the fundamental chaotic behavior. Because of this there is considerable controversy and the field of optical bistability continues to generate new and exciting results and approaches. This conference will bring together experts worldwide and should prove to be exciting and important for this rapidly changing field.
