JP3324231B2 - Optical operation element - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical operation device used in fields such as optoelectronics, optical information processing, and optical communication.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Optical information processing is attracting attention as a key to next-generation communication and information processing that sufficiently exhibits the excellent characteristics of light, such as high speed and parallelism. In particular, in the field of image processing, various high-speed operation optical operation elements have been proposed as logic devices capable of simultaneously processing a plurality of logic inputs. For example,
Japanese Patent No. 31569 discloses an optical logic device utilizing the fact that the absorption and emission of an alignment dye differ depending on the polarization. However, in this device, since the logic is arbitrarily associated with the emission intensity, a processing device is required at the back, and there is a problem that the device becomes complicated.

[0003] Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Sho 58-105218,
JP-A-58-215626 discloses a logical operation element in which a photoconductive material and a liquid crystal are combined. This utilizes the fact that a portion irradiated with light conducts and the electric field applied to the liquid crystal changes, thereby changing the optical rotation angle. However, in this method, electric processing is involved in the process of calculating light and light, so that the processing speed is reduced.
There is a problem that the device becomes complicated.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems and to realize a high-speed logical operation with a simple configuration by combining the optical rotation dispersion characteristic and a third-order or higher nonlinear optical effect. An object of the present invention is to provide a novel optical operation element. The present invention uses a reference light and two control lights having the same polarization plane as the reference light, different wavelengths from the reference light, and different wavelengths from each other as the incident light. Optical operation element for obtaining an output with a difference in the intensity of light, wherein an optical rotatory dispersion element for generating an angle between mutual polarization planes of the reference light and the two control lights incident on the same polarization plane, and two optical dispersion elements A nonlinear optical element having a third-order or higher nonlinear optical effect for extracting the effect of the control light as a polarization change of the reference light, a phase difference element for applying an elliptical bias to the reference light, and a polarization change of the reference light. It comprises a polarizing element for converting into intensity, of the two control lights,
The function of the first control light is set so as to increase the ellipticity of the reference light in the same direction as the elliptic bias, and the function of the second control light decreases the ellipticity of the reference light in the direction opposite to the elliptic bias. The present invention relates to an optical operation element characterized in that it is set so as to cause the operation.

As the optical rotation dispersing element of the present invention, a crystal or polymer of a substance having an optical rotation dispersing property, a substance having an optical rotation dispersing property can be doped into a polymer or a solution,
Those introduced into the side chain of the polymer can be mentioned. Alternatively, a material having a rotatory power such as a pigment or the like introduced into a polymer or a low molecular compound having optical rotatory power to induce optical rotatory dispersion performance may be used. Further, a material obtained by blending a plurality of optical rotation dispersing materials may be used.

Examples of the substance having optical rotation dispersion performance include a chiral compound whose molecule itself has optical rotation dispersion performance, a substance exhibiting optical rotation dispersion performance by crystallization, an external electric field,
Substances that exhibit optical rotation dispersion performance due to a magnetic field, rubbing of a substrate, or the like can be given. For example, amino acids, polypeptides, tartaric acid, helicene, polyglutamate, quartz,
Cholesteric liquid crystals, nematic liquid crystals and the like are mentioned.

The nonlinear optical element having a third-order or higher nonlinear optical effect includes a crystal or polymer of a substance having a third-order or higher nonlinearity, doping a polymer or a solution having a third-order or higher nonlinearity into a polymer or a solution, And those introduced into the side chain of Of course, the substance having the optical rotatory dispersion performance may have a third-order or higher nonlinearity at the same time.

A substance having a third-order or higher nonlinearity includes a substance having a large delocalized π-electron system.
For example, DANSE (4-dimethylamino-4'-nitrostilbene), tetrakis (2,4-xylyl) butatriene, 9,10-bis (3,3-diphenyl-3-)
(Hydroxypropynyl) anthracene, 2- (4-nitrophenyl) -4,5-diphenylimidazole, 2-
(4-nitrophenyl) -4,5-bis (4-methoxyphenyl) imidazole, tetrathiotetracene, 3,
6-bis (4,5-diphenyl-2H-imidazole-
2-ylidene) -1,4-cyclohexadiene, 2-
(Thiopyran-4-ylidene) -1,3-dithiol,
1,1,6,6-tetraphenyl-hexa-1,5-diene-3-yne, 3,3′-diethyloxacarbocyanine, 3,3′-diethyloxadicarbocyanine and the like. CuCl, CdSe,
Examples include ZnSe and the like, and carbon disulfide and nitrobenzene due to a molecular orientation effect. Examples of the polarizing element include those using birefringence, those using dichroism, those using reflection, and the like.

The optical operation element of the present invention uses, as incident light, reference light and two control lights having different wavelengths from the reference light and having different wavelengths from each other. If the wavelengths of the reference light and the control light are different, the respective optical rotation angles are different, and the angle for exciting the nonlinear optical element is deviated from the polarization direction of the reference light, so that the polarization of the illuminated reference light is changed, and as a result, The amount of reference light that passes through the polarizing element changes. Therefore, since the amount of the reference light transmitted through the polarization element corresponds to the sum of the polarization changes, the reference light is subjected to an elliptical bias by a phase difference plate, and the two control lights
The function of the first control light is set to increase the ellipticity of the reference light in the same direction as the elliptic bias, and the function of the second control light is reduced in the reverse direction to the elliptic bias. By setting so that the difference between the intensities of the two control lights is superimposed on the output light due to the bias, an output is obtained.

[0010]

The present invention will be specifically described below with reference to examples.

[0011]

[0012]

[0013]

[0014]

Embodiment 1 FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing another example of the optical operation device according to the present invention. Reference numeral 31 is reference light having a wavelength λ0. Reference numeral 32 denotes a first control light having a wavelength λ1. Image information is put on a spatial pattern of a beam by 41, and the mirror 34 that selectively reflects the wavelength λ1 overlaps with the reference light and travels in the same direction. Reference numeral 33 denotes a second control light having a wavelength λ2. The reference light and the first control light are reflected by a mirror 35 that selectively reflects the wavelength λ2 by putting image information similar to, for example, 41 on the spatial pattern of the beam by 42. Overlap and proceed in the same direction.
The reference light and the first and second control lights pass through the polarizer 36 and enter the optical rotatory dispersion element 37 with the same plane of polarization. The optical rotation angle when transmitted through the optical rotation dispersing element 37 is 90 ° for the reference light, 135 ° for the first control light, and 4 ° for the second control light.
Λ0, λ1, λ2 and the optical rotatory dispersion element are set to be 5 °.

The reference light having different polarization planes and the first
And the second control light passes through the nonlinear optical element 38 having almost no chromatic dispersion, and then passes through the phase difference plate 43, for example, 1/8.
After biasing the polarization with a wave plate, the analyzer 39
, And the bandpass filter 40 extracts only the reference light component as the signal light 44. Here, the phase difference plate 4
Numeral 3 is set so as to cause ellipticity in the same direction as that of the reference light by the first control light. At this time, the function of the first control light is in the same direction as the bias, so that it works to increase the ellipticity, increases the reference light transmitted through the analyzer 39, and the function of the second control light is opposite to the bias. Since it is the direction, it works to reduce the ellipticity, and reduces the reference light transmitted through the analyzer 39.

Therefore, when the first control light and the second control light have the same intensity, the intensity of the signal light does not change, and the intensity of the first control light is higher than the intensity of the second control light. The signal light intensity increases in a large portion, and conversely, the signal light intensity decreases in a portion where the intensity of the second control light is greater than the intensity of the first control light. That is, the image of the output signal light changes according to the difference between the first image 41 and the second image 42. By detecting the image of the output signal with, for example, a photodiode array, it is possible to instantaneously subtract the images.

[0018]

According to the present invention, a high-speed operation processing capable of simultaneously processing a plurality of logic inputs with a simple configuration becomes possible.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing an example of an optical processing element according to the present invention in the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 31 Reference Light of Wavelength λ0 32 First Control Light of Wavelength λ1 33 Second Control Light of Wavelength λ2 34, 35 Mirror 36 Polarizer 37 Optical Rotating Dispersion Element 38 Nonlinear Optical Element 39 Analyzer 40 Bandpass Filter 41, 42 Image Information 43 Phase plate 44 Signal light

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-3-278035 (JP, A) JP-A-4-160612 (JP, A) Y. Yokozawa et al., Spring 1993 40th Applied Physics-related Union Proceedings of the Lectures, Volume 3 (issued March 29, 1993) pp. 1156 (58) Fields surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G02F 1/35-1/365 G02F 3/00-3/02 JICST file (JOIS) INSPEC (DIALOG) WPI (DIALOG)

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] As claimed in claim 1 incident light, reference light and a reference light in the same polarization plane, different wavelength from that of the reference light, and, using two of the control light having different wavelengths from each other, two control
An optical operation element for obtaining an output with a difference in light intensity ,
An optical rotatory dispersion element for generating an angle between the polarization planes of the reference light and the two control lights incident on the same polarization plane, and an operation effect of the two control lights as a change in polarization of the reference light. Nonlinear optical element with third-order or higher nonlinear optical effect for extraction , phase difference for applying elliptical bias to reference light
And a polarizing element for converting a polarization change of the reference light into an intensity, and the first control light of the two control lights is provided.
The function of the light is in the same direction as the elliptical bias, and the ellipticity of the reference light
Is set to increase, and the function of the second control light is elliptical.
The ellipticity of the reference beam is reduced in the direction opposite to the circularization bias.
An optical operation element characterized by being set as follows .