Title :
Free-space digital optical systems
Author :
Hinton, H. Scott ; Cloonan, Tom J. ; McCormick, Frederick B., Jr. ; Lentine, Anthony L. ; Tooley, Frank A P
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Colorado Univ., Boulder, CO, USA
fDate :
11/1/1994 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
Within the past 15 years there has been significant progress in the development of two-dimensional arrays of optical and optoelectronic devices. This progress has, in turn, led to the construction of several free-space digital optical system demonstrators. The first was an optical master-slave flip-flop using Hughes liquid-crystal light valves as optical logic gates and computer-generated holograms as the gate-to-gate interconnects. This was demonstrated at USC in 1984. Since then there have been numerous demonstrations of free-space digital optical systems including a simple optical computing system (1990) and five switching fabrics designated System1 (1988), System2 (1989), System3 (1990), System4 (1991) and System5 (1993). The main focus of this paper will be to describe the five switching fabric demonstrators constructed by AT&T in Naperville, IL. The paper will begin with an overview of the SEED technology which was the device platform used by the demonstrators. This will be followed by a discussion of the architecture, optics, and optomechanics developed for each of the five demonstrators
Keywords :
SEEDs; computer-generated holography; electro-optical switches; flip-flops; holographic optical elements; integrated optoelectronics; liquid crystal devices; optical interconnections; optical logic; Hughes liquid-crystal light valves; SEED technology; architecture; computer-generated holograms; free-space digital optical system demonstrators; free-space digital optical systems; gate-to-gate interconnects; optical computing system; optical logic gates; optical master-slave flip-flop; optics; optoelectronic devices; optomechanics; overview; switching fabrics; Fabrics; Flip-flops; Logic gates; Master-slave; Optical arrays; Optical computing; Optical devices; Optical interconnections; Optoelectronic devices; Valves;
Journal_Title :
Proceedings of the IEEE