Time Lenses and Ultrafast Optical Temporal Processors

THE FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATIONS OF OPTICS IN PARALLEL PROCESSING SYSTEMS HAVE RECENTLY BECOME UNDERSTOOD. WHEN A PARALLEL OPTICAL COMPUTER APPROACHES ITS PARALLEL SPEED LIMITATION, ITS PERFORMANCE CAN ONLY BE BOOSTED BY INCREASING THE SERIAL PROCESSING SPEED OF EACH PROCESSING ELEMENT. RECENTLY, A NOVEL TIME LENS HAS BEEN PROPOSED BASED ON THE WELL KNOWN ANALOGY BETWEEN OPTICAL SPATIAL DIFFRACTION AND TEMPORAL FREQUENCY DISPERSION. VARIOUS OPTICAL TEMPORAL PROCESSORS CAN BE CONSTRUCTED EMPLOYING THESE TIME LENSES. A DISTINCT ADVANTAGE OF THESE TEMPORAL PROCESSIING SYSTEMS IS THEIR EXTREMELY HIGH SPEED, UP TO PICOSECOND RANGE WITH CURRENTLY AVAILABLE DEVICES. SUCH TEMPORAL PROCESSORS, IF SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOPED, WILL HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON OPTICAL COMPUTING AND OPTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES. TO DATE, ALL THE RESEARCH ACTIVITIES IN THIS AREA ARE LIMITED TO ANALYTICAL DERIVATION AND COMPUTER SIMULATION. THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT IS TO DEVELOP OPTICAL HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION OF THESE NOVEL PROCESSORS. IN PHASE I, THE DESIGN OF THE PROCESSORS USING OFF-THE-SHELF DEVICES WILL BE PRODUCED. THE PERFORMANCE OF THE DESIGNED SYSTEM WILL BE ANALYZED. A PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT IS SCHEDULED FOR PHASE II.