Bragg localized structures in a passive cavity with transverse modulation of the refractive index and the pump

We consider a passive optical cavity containing a photonic crystal and a purely absorptive two-level medium. The cavity is driven by a superposition of two coherent beams forming a periodically modulated pump. Using a coupled mode reduction and direct numerical modeling of the full system we demonstrate the existence of bistability between uniformly periodic states, modulational instabilities and localized structures of light. All are found to exist within the conduction band of the photonic material. Moreover, contrary to similar previously found intra-band structures, we show that these localized structures can be truly stationary states. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.