Abstract

Reconfigurable optical interconnection [1] linking laser arrays and detector arrays plays a key role in optical computing. A generalized crossbar switch [2] allowing arbitrary interconnection, including many-to-one and one-to-many (broadcasting), is the most desirable type of interconnection network for parallel processing. Such a switch can be implemented using optical matrix-vector inner product architecture [3] where a spatial light modulator (SLM) can be used as a binary matrix mask for configuring the interconnection pattern. For one-to-one interconnection (permutation) of a linear array of N-sources to a linear array of N-detectors (i.e., a normal crossbar), the upper limit of the energy efficiency of such an architecture is 1/N due to its fanout nature. Recently, we have proposed and demonstrated [4,5] that photorefractive dynamic holograms can be incorporated into this architecture to significantly improve the energy efficiency. In this paper, we report experimental results on the energy efficiency of such a reconfigurable interconnection using a BaTiO₃ crystal.

© 1989 Optical Society of America