Abstract

Absorbing interference filters can be used as optical three-port logic gates exhibiting gain, hard-limiting single wavelength operation [1]. Furthermore, their large-area (~ cm²) uniformity ensures that two-dimensional arrays of gates (~ 100) can be operated independently with similar power transfer characteristics (a variation of a few percent in the switching power). Such devices offer the potential to demonstrate the feasibility of novel digital computing techniques. The presentation will describe the successful operation of two looped optical circuits; a 4-channel flip-flop and a circuit which demonstrates that a full-adder can be constructed by using the reflected and transmitted outputs from a single gate simultaneously and that these outputs are cascadable, Figure 1 [2]. In addition, the operation of a pipelined circuit which performs digital edge extraction will be described with emphasis on the role of holographic interconnection (multiple fan-in and fan-out) of arrays of logic gates, Figure 2. The successful operation of such circuits places constraints on the individual responses. These will be analysed using a recently developed operating curve technique.

© 1988 Optical Society of America