Array illuminator based on transverse self-phase modulation in bacteriorhodopsin thin film

Bacteriorhodopsin (bR), the light sensitive protein in the purple membrane Halobacterium halobium, has recently received much attention owing to its real time processing capabilities and potential for optical information storage. Bacteriorhodopsin is a highly nonlinear optical material, possessing an extremely large third order nonlinearity. Optical Kerr coefficients in the range of 10^{-20 to 10(-4} cm²/w have been reported. In this paper, we describe a scheme that exploits the large Kerr-coefficient in order to implement a simple, robust and energy efficient array illuminator. An array illuminator converts a uniformly expanded laser beam into an array of bright spots. This can be useful for illuminating arrays of photonic switching devices such as smart pixels, bistable elements and optical thresholding devices