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Optics Letters

All-optical passive transistor

Sarang Medhekar, Ram Krishna Sarkar

Published Apr 15, 2005• 36 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show the possibility of developing an all-optical passive transistor in a simple and novel way. This could be done by copropagating two coaxial beams through a modified optical power filter. We show NOT logic and intensity modulation of the strong beam by the weak beam obtained with the analog.
DOI
10.1364/ol.30.000887

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A device is proposed which is the optical analog of the transistor wherein a weak incoming optical signal directly controls a strong outgoing optical signal. The basic principle utilized in the proposed device is the strong dependence of second harmonic generation on the phase-matching condition. A weak incoming signal can perturb the indices of refraction in a birefringent material so that the second harmonic power derived from a pump beam is significantly affected. Large incremental power gain is shown to be possible. Tellurium is considered as an example.
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