Influence of absorbing dielectric background on bistable response of dense collection of two-level atoms

The stationary problem of light interaction with a dense collection of two-level atoms embedded in a dielectric is treated semiclassically. The effect of dielectric absorption on the phenomenon of intrinsic optical bistability is discussed in terms of the complex local-field enhancement factor. The calculations accounting propagation effects (nonlocal regime) show that even low dielectric absorption results in elimination of response instabilities.