JP4904199B2 - Optical parallel computing element - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an optical parallel computing element for performing higher-performance parallel computation at higher speed by incorporating optical information of each other during optical parallel computation.

  With the recent demand for higher speed and higher performance of information processing apparatuses, parallel processing is required. For this reason, a parallel arithmetic element in which a plurality of digital arithmetic processing circuits are incorporated is provided. However, for analog information, parallel digital arithmetic must be performed after each signal is converted into a digital signal. For this reason, an arithmetic element capable of calculating a plurality of analog signals in parallel at the same time in analog form is required for speeding up the arithmetic processing.

  A conventional analog arithmetic element uses a conventional semiconductor element such as an operational amplifier for a single circuit. In a plurality of circuits, an analog signal is first converted into a digital signal, and then a plurality of digital signals are processed. Was. Therefore, in order to perform analog operations of a plurality of analog signals in parallel, the same number of analog-digital conversion circuits as the number of input circuits are required. In addition, as the number of circuits increases, there arises a problem that it becomes difficult to synchronize a plurality of analog-digital conversion circuits.

  On the other hand, an element that performs calculation using light has been proposed. FIG. 5 schematically shows a cross-sectional view of a configuration of a conventional optical arithmetic element. The optical computing element includes a plurality of optical cells 51 arranged in a two-dimensional array, and each optical cell 51 is a light-responsive substance 54 that responds to light information in a partition made up of a partition wall 52 and a bottom portion 53. Is housed. Each optical cell 51 is irradiated with light 56 having a predetermined wavelength by the arithmetic light irradiation device 55, and the photoresponsive substance 54 in the optical cell 51 irradiated with the light 56 exhibits photoresponsiveness and detects its state. Thus, the calculation is performed.

  However, such conventional optical arithmetic elements are performed by independent optical cells 51 when performing parallel processing, and information is exchanged between adjacent optical cells 51 during parallel arithmetic. Not done. If computation between adjacent optical cells 51 is necessary, the parallel computation is temporarily stopped, computation between the optical cells 51 is performed, and then the parallel computation is resumed.

Accordingly, there has been a problem that as the amount of information exchanged between the optical cells 51 increases, the calculation speed of the parallel calculation by the plurality of optical cells 51 decreases. In parallel computation, since processing such as data rearrangement is necessary for pre-processing for performing parallel computation, there is a problem that computation by a single optical cell 51 is faster in some cases.
F. Bos, Appl. Optics, vol.20, No.20, 3553 (1981) GT Kovacs, NI Maluf and KE Peterson, “Bulk Micromachining of Silicon”, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 86, No. 8, 1536 (1998)

  The present invention has been made to solve such problems of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide an optical parallel arithmetic element capable of performing higher-performance parallel arithmetic at higher speed.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention first has a plurality of optical cells provided adjacent to each other, and each optical cell has a light incident part on the top, and a light-transmitting partition wall. A light-responsive substance that responds when receiving light information is accommodated in a space partitioned at the bottom, and an optical cell adjacent to the bottom by reflecting light incident from above through a light-transmitting barrier And the photoresponsive substance emits light of the second specific wavelength after being excited from the ground state to the excited state when irradiated only with light of the first specific wavelength. When the light having the first specific wavelength and the light having the second specific wavelength are simultaneously irradiated, light having a strong second specific wavelength is emitted by stimulated emission. Control and exchange light with the adjacent optical cell More, to provide light parallel operation elements and performing analog operation between the two optical cell.

  Secondly, in the first invention, there is provided an optical parallel computing element characterized in that the photoresponsive substance is a laser dye.

  Thirdly, in the first or second invention, there is provided an optical parallel arithmetic element characterized in that each optical cell has a square shape in plan view and a bottom portion has a quadrangular pyramid shape.

  Fourth, in the first or second invention, there is provided an optical parallel arithmetic element characterized in that the shape of each optical cell is a regular triangular shape in plan view and the shape of the bottom is a triangular pyramid shape. .

  Fifth, in the first or second invention, there is provided an optical parallel arithmetic element characterized in that the shape of each optical cell is a regular hexagonal shape in plan view and the shape of the bottom is a hexagonal pyramid shape. .

  According to the present invention, since the mirror and the light-transmitting partition are provided in the optical cell, it becomes possible to add information from adjacent optical cells, so that higher-performance parallel computation is performed at higher speed. An arithmetic element can be realized, which greatly contributes to the performance improvement of the analog arithmetic device.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail.

  FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view schematically showing the configuration of an optical cell in the optical parallel arithmetic element of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the principle of the optical parallel arithmetic element of the present invention.

  The optical cell 11 has a space partitioned by a partition wall 12 and a bottom portion 13, and a photoresponsive substance 14 that responds when receiving light information is accommodated in the space. The partition wall 12 is provided with a light transmissive optical window 15. Note that the partition wall 12 itself may be formed of a light transmissive material. Further, the bottom 13 has a triangular cross section as shown in the figure, and a mirror 16 is formed as shown in the part corresponding to the two sides. This mirror 16 is provided to transmit information of its own light to the adjacent optical cell 11. Although the upper side of the optical cell 11 is described as opening, it is assumed that the photoresponsive substance 14 is sealed in the apparatus. This sealing may be performed by a method of covering with a light transmissive material, or may be encapsulated. The photoresponsive substance 14 in the optical cell 11 can be irradiated with light from above. Here, the upper side refers to the direction shown in the drawings, and may be in any direction in actual use. As a material of the optical cell 11, for example, quartz, silicon, alumina or the like can be used. Further, as the material of the optical window 15, for example, quartz, glass, silicon nitride, silicon oxide, or the like can be used. For example, when the optical window 15 is a silicon oxide window, a plurality of holes having a quadrangular shape in plan view are dug in a silicon material by a micromachine technique, and a wall thickness between adjacent holes is set to several microns. It can be formed by a technique of oxidizing silicon. Moreover, you may use the method of adhere | attaching the wall made from the light transmissive material. As a material of the mirror 16, for example, gold, aluminum or the like can be used. Each optical cell 11 can be formed using, for example, a micromachine technique.

The photoresponsive material 14, and deactivated to the ground state while emitting light W _B of the second specific wavelength after excitation from the ground state to the excited state when irradiated with only light of the first specific wavelength W _A , use those emitting light with high second specific wavelength W _B by stimulated emission upon irradiation with light of a first specific wavelength W _a light of a second specific wavelength W _B at the same time. Various materials can be used as the photoresponsive substance 14 as long as they have the properties described above, and in particular, Benzoic Acid, 2- [6- (ethylamino) -3- (ethylimino)- 2,7-dimethyl-3H-xanthen-9-yl] -ethyl ester, monohydrochloride (hereinafter abbreviated as Rhodamine6G), o- (6-Amino-3-imino-3H-xanthen-9-yl) -benzoic acid A laser dye such as (commonly known as Rhodamine 110) can be preferably used. These dyes are used after being dissolved in an alcohol such as ethanol or methanol, or a solvent such as dimethyl sulfoxide. The photoresponsive substance 14 exhibits photoresponsiveness by changing the electronic state of molecules upon irradiation with light. Here, light emission having different intensities is used.

Describing the operation operation, first, as shown in the upper diagram of FIG. 2 (a), irradiated only with light having a wavelength W _A to light-responsive substance 14 of the optical cell A (11). Here, the intensity of the wavelength W _A is set to a size that does not cause a stimulated emission of which emits light of wavelength W _B by photoresponsive material 14. At this time, the change of the optical cell A (11) is very small, and after a certain period of time, the state becomes as shown in the lower diagram of FIG.

On the other hand, the wavelength _W of the light _A in a state of irradiating the photoresponsive material 14 of the optical cell A (11), a wavelength W in photoresponsive material 14 of the optical cell B (11) adjacent to the optical cell A (11) _When the light of _B is irradiated, this light is reflected by the mirror 16 of the optical cell B (11) and irradiated to the photoresponsive substance 14 in the optical cell A (11). Then, by the light of the wavelength W _A and the wavelength W _B are illuminated simultaneously, the state of the light-responsive material 14 in the optical cell A (11) varies greatly. That is, light-responsive substance 14 in the optical cell A (11) Since the light of the wavelength W _B is irradiated through the optical window 15 from an adjacent optical cell B (11), excited at the optical cell A (11) stimulated emission occurs against photoresponsive material 14, so that strong light wavelength W _B emitted. The intense light generated as a result of this phenomenon is the calculation result of the adjacent optical cell B (11) and optical cell A (11). Therefore, by using the change of the photoresponsive substance 14 that occurs when information is simultaneously input to adjacent optical cells, it is possible to perform calculations using a plurality of input information. In addition, since the calculation result is in accordance with the light intensity, analog calculation can be realized.

  As described above, the principle of the optical parallel arithmetic element of the present invention has been described by taking the case of using two optical cells as an example. Of course, in the present invention, an element configuration in which a large number of optical cells are two-dimensionally arranged can be used. .

  Next, the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to examples.

  FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view schematically showing the configuration of the optical parallel arithmetic element according to the embodiment of the present invention. The optical parallel arithmetic element of FIG. 3 has four optical cells 31, but this is for illustrative purposes, and in practice, a required number of optical cells can be two-dimensionally arranged.

  The optical cell 31 was formed by subjecting quartz to semiconductor fine processing to form a space partitioned by a partition wall 32 and a bottom 33 as shown in FIG. The partition wall 32 becomes an optical window 35 so that light passes between the adjacent optical cells 31. A mirror 36 was provided by depositing gold on the bottom 33 having a triangular cross section. The mirror 36 was formed so as to reflect the light that entered from above through the optical window 34 of the partition wall 32 toward the adjacent optical cell 31. In the optical cell 31, a methanol solution of Rhodamine 6G was placed as a photoresponsive substance 34.

  Next, the operation of this optical parallel arithmetic element will be described with reference to the principle explanatory diagram of the embodiment of FIG. As shown in FIG. 4 (a), when the photoresponsive substance (Rhodamine 6G) 14 of the optical cell A (31) is irradiated with only light having a wavelength of 308 nm, it is excited to an excited state, and then lost while emitting 556 nm light. Lived. As shown in FIG. 4B, when the optical cell A (31) is irradiated with light having a wavelength of 308 nm and at the same time incident with light having a wavelength of 556 nm from the adjacent optical cell 31, the adjacent optical cell 31 is irradiated. The light having a wavelength of 556 nm is reflected toward the optical cell A (31) by the mirror 36 in the adjacent optical cell 31. At this time, stimulated emission occurred with respect to Rhodamine 6G excited in the optical cell A (31), and Rhodamine 6G emitted strong light having a wavelength of 556 nm. The intense light generated as a result of this series of phenomena is used as the calculation result of the adjacent optical cell 31 and optical cell A (31). This calculation result can be obtained by receiving strong light output from the optical cell 31.

  As mentioned above, although this invention has been demonstrated based on embodiment and an Example, this invention is not limited to the said embodiment and Example, A various deformation | transformation and change are possible.

  For example, in the above description, the case where each optical cell has a square shape in plan view and the bottom portion has a quadrangular pyramid shape has been described as an example. However, each optical cell has a regular triangular shape in plan view. These may be arranged finely, assuming that the shape of the bottom is a triangular pyramid, and the shape is a regular hexagon in plan view, the shape of the bottom is a hexagonal pyramid, and these are arranged in a honeycomb shape May be. These can be produced by simply changing the pattern of the lithography mask when micromachine technology is used to form each optical cell.

  In the present invention, the bottom of each optical cell may be flat at the top.

  Since the present invention can add information to adjacent optical cells, the present invention is expected to be used for calculation of diffusion phenomenon, calculation for image processing, and the like.

It is sectional drawing which shows typically the structure of the optical cell in the optical parallel arithmetic element of this invention. It is principle explanatory drawing of the optical parallel arithmetic element of this invention. It is a figure which shows typically the structure of the optical parallel arithmetic element which concerns on the Example of this invention. It is principle explanatory drawing of the optical parallel arithmetic element based on the Example of this invention. It is sectional drawing which shows the structure of the conventional optical arithmetic element typically.

Explanation of symbols

11, 31 Optical cell 12, 32 Partition 13, 33 Bottom 14, 34 Photoresponsive material 15, 35 Optical window 16, 36 Mirror

Claims (5)

A plurality of optical cells provided adjacent to each other;
Each optical cell has a light incident part at the top, and a light-responsive substance that responds when receiving light information in a space partitioned by a light-transmitting partition and a bottom part. A mirror is provided for reflecting light incident from above and guiding it to an adjacent optical cell through a light-transmitting barrier,
The photoresponsive substance is excited from the ground state to the excited state when irradiated with only light of the first specific wavelength, and then deactivated to the ground state while emitting light of the second specific wavelength, and the first specific wavelength When the light of the wavelength and the light of the second specific wavelength are irradiated at the same time, strong light of the second specific wavelength is emitted by stimulated emission,
An optical parallel computing element that performs analog computation between both optical cells by controlling light irradiation to each optical cell and exchanging light with an adjacent optical cell.   The optical parallel computing element according to claim 1, wherein the photoresponsive substance is a laser dye.   3. The optical parallel arithmetic element according to claim 1, wherein each optical cell has a square shape in plan view, and a bottom portion has a quadrangular pyramid shape.   3. The optical parallel arithmetic element according to claim 1, wherein each optical cell has a regular triangular shape in plan view, and a bottom shape has a triangular pyramid shape.   3. The optical parallel arithmetic element according to claim 1, wherein the shape of each optical cell is a regular hexagonal shape in plan view, and the shape of the bottom portion is a hexagonal pyramid shape.