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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Adaptive Optical Logic And Switching Devices

David Kagan, Harry Friedmann

Published Mar 10, 1988• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Tunable Optical Bistability, where a low power control beam is used to adapt the hysteresis response and the switching of optically bistable elements, is shown to occur in various systems with a bichromatic input. Some applications of this are suggested for more complex logic gates and for pattern recognition.
DOI
10.1117/12.942375

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During the last few years we have suggested1−2 the use of a four-level system irradiated by a bichromatic beam to obtain a tunable optical bistable device. By tunable we mean that the switching threshold can be altered without changing the hardware characteristics, the operating temperature, or the frequencies of the inputs to the device. The basic principle of our suggestion is that by irradiating the non-linear optical material by two beams of appropriately chosen frequencies in an optical cavity, one can act as a signal and the other as tuning control beam. The advantage of the four level system lay in the possibility of using low power control beams which could tune the characteristic optically bistable output curves.
When the output parameter of an optical device could be a multivalued function of the input parameter, this device can be working in an optical bistable status. The most typical optical bistable device is a Fabry–Perot cavity containing a nonlinear optical medium, the refractive index of which depends on the light intensity. Upon the action of an intense input optical beam, the transmitted (or reflected) intensity of this device may exhibit a nonlinear response to the incident light intensity variation and, especially under appropriate working conditions, the characteristic output/input curve may manifest a single (or multiple) hysteresis loop(s). Such type of optical bistable device can be used as an optical differential amplifier, optical switch, optical limiter, optical clipper, optical discriminator, or an optical memory element, depending on the chosen nonlinear medium and operation conditions.
Optical bistable devices [1] are being developed with a view to their use as logic gates in optical processors [2]. The response of an optical bistable device is strongly nonlinear and once a device has been fabricated, its behaviour as a logic gate can still be modified to a large extent by the variation of certain parameters used to bias the device, Important responses include the device’s fanout potential, its switching speed and the contrast between its high and low output levels. Because of the complexity of the behaviour, it can be difficult to see how one response varies as another is improved. The method of ‘operating curves’ explained here allows a system designer to see how optimum performance may be attained.
A simple four-level model is used to describe two-band systems such as dyes and semiconductors. The system is irradiated by a bichromatic input in an optical cavity and both fields exhibit optical multistability. The calculations take into account the possibility of noncoherent (electrical) pumping of the system, thus generalizing the model to include semiconductor laser amplifiers. Since both fields are allowed to resonate in the cavity, a low-intensity control beam and/or the noncoherent pumping intensity can 'tune' and adapt the response of the second input. Some applications of this tunability are outlined.>