OPTICALCOMPUTER

Authors

B.Mallikarjuna Reddy K.Gnanendra Chekravarthy

II B.Tech (CSE) II B.Tech (CSE)

Roll: 07L21A0502 Roll: 07L21A0538

Email: [email protected] Email:[email protected]

Cell: 9441496893 Cells: 9966131963

VAAGDEVI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCES

PEDDASETTIPALLI (VILL), PRODDATUR,
KADAPA DT.ANDHRA PRADESH
 OPTICAL COMPUTER

CONTENTS

1 Introduction

2 Optical Computer

3 Optical Components for binary digital computer

4 Basic components for digital computer

5 The elements of a binary digital computer

6 Advantages

7 Conclusion
 OPTICAL COMPUTER

Introduction: confined essential to two dimensions.

Electric currents must be guided around
Now a days we are using the
each other, and this make three
electronic computer, just think for a while
dimensional wiring necessary. Thus an
if all the electronic components are
optical computer besides being much
replaced with optical one. Optical
faster than an electronic one, might also be
computer is the computer which performs
smaller.
operations ten or more times faster than
the conventional electronic computers.
This optical computer uses the infrared
beams to manipulate store, transmit data.
Optical Computer:
Optical computer is a computer
that uses light instead of electricity
(photons instead of electrons) to
manipulate, store and transmit data. It uses
the IR beams to perform digital
computations, which results an optical
computer which perform operations ten or
more faster than an electronic computer. Electrical crossovers (top) require three
dimensions, but optical crossovers
(bottom) require only two dimensions
because light beams don’t intersect.
Optical components for binary
digital computer:

Visible light and IR beams and

unlike electric currents, pass through each
other with out interacting. Several laser
beams can be shone so their paths
intersect, but there is not interference
among the beams, even when they are
 The fundamental building block for component is needed that controlled by
modern electronic computers is transistor. this both states and, what is more
To replace electronic components with important, it has to be possible to go from
optical ones, an equivalent optical one state go other state in a conventional
transistor is required. This is achieved way, i.e. according to some pre determined
using materials with a non-linear refractive non-linear function. In other words we
index. In particular, materials exist where have to be able to switch between these
the intensity of incoming light affects the two stable states.
intensity of the light, transmitted through An electronic switch:
the material in a similar manner to the In electronics, switching is done by
voltage response of an electronic the transistor.
transistor. This “optical transistor” effect is The transistor consists of three
used to create logic gates, which in turn layers: the emitter, collector and base. The
are assembled into the higher level base is the middle layer and is made of
components of the computer CPU. semi conducting material. This means that

Basic components for digital it can acts either as an insulator between

emitter and collector, or as a conductor. If
computer:
a small current flows from base to
In optical computer which utilizes
collector, some electrons traverse the base.
photons as information carriers instead of
This changes the base from an insulator to
electrons. An important step in building
a conductor. If there is not current from
this optical computer has been
base to collector, the base acts as an
construction of an optical alternative for
insulator again. Now we have an electronic
the electronic transistor.
switch, because if the base acts as a
Basic components:
conductor and we let some (large) current
 A switch
flow from emitter to collector, we can stop
o An electronic switch.
this current by stopping the (small) current
o Photos carrying information
base to collector. However, this switch is
o Optical bistability
subject to some limitations. There is a
o Optical switch limit to the speed by which electrons can
A switch: traverse the base, and in modern VSLI
A binary digital computer needs to design, this limit is reached with
be able to represent two states, “1” and approximately a nanosecond. But there
“0”, the true and the false. So some might be other media to transport the
mechanical, electronics, optical, whatever information in a computer, thus attaining a
higher speed. Photons carrying Figure: Nonlinear refraction with hysteresis loop.

information. The way we depicted the relation

between the incident and the transmitted
Photons carrying information: intensity of a beam of light going through
The highest speed ever attainable is some material as described in the previous
the speed of light. So it seems logical to section is only partly true. It is actually so,
see light, or electromagnetic radiation in that the diagram representing an increasing
general, as the perfect way of pushing incident beam slightly differs from the
computing to its limits. diagram representing a decreasing incident
First of all, the electrons affect beam. That is, the “switching-intensity”
each other at distance, while photos do not. (the incident intensity needed for the steep
In particular, electrons repel each other line in the diagram) of the incident beam
because of their negative magnetic load. differs. Representing this phenomenon in
This property is an advantage in switching one diagram results in the one depicted in
a transistor, in changing the base from an figure. It has a loop called the hysteresis
insulator to a conductor and vice versa. loop.
And this where another advantage By this hysteresis loop we again
of photos come in: two beams of light can have two stable states. If we keep the
cross without affecting each other, incident beam at an intensity in the domain
provided their angle is not less than 10. of the hysteresis loop, the transmitted
This increase the number of possible intensity remains at the same level (high or
interconnections, something we come back low).
to later. An optical switch:
Optical bistability: At this point we take a closer look
To build gates and storage (the real at the conventional transistor. In the
hardware components of the conventional electronic transistor, the two currents of
digital computer), taking the transphasor electrons do not really interact. The semi
as a staring point, we will explain conducting material acts as an
something more about a property of some intermedium. If we want to build a switch
materials, called optical bistability. and follow the idea of the transistor, we
have to find a material isomorphic to the
semi conducting material i.e. a device of
which we can change the properties just by
sending a beam of light through it. Perhaps
we can find a device that sometimes
(dependent on another beam) is opaque, number of half wavelengths, the beams of
and sometimes transparent. In 1896 the light that are in the cavity interfere
French physicist Charles Fabry and Alfred constructively. This means that the
Petor invented their interferometer. It is transmitted beam is far more that 1
simply consists of two partially reflecting percent, it might even be a 100 percent. On
mirrors, placed parallel to each other. This the other hand, if the mirrors are placed at
might be the basis for an optical transistor. an integral number of half wavelengths,
If a beam of light strikes the first mirror, the waves interfere destructively. The
some percentage of the light is reflected, transmitted beam is even less than 1
and some goes through. The same happens percent. Thus, we have some sort of a
at the other mirror. But if we take two switch. But so far it only switches by
mirrors that let only 10 percent of the light placing the mirrors at another distance.
go through, only 1 percent of the light Now we come back to the major
goes through both mirrors (the transmitted problem of how to switch without moving
beam) and some of the light stays between parts. It would be nice to be able to change
the mirrors (in what is called the cavity) the wavelength of a beam. The
for a while. development of lasers, sources of very
powerful coherent radiation, it was
discovered that the refractive index of
some materials changes if the intensity of
incoming the beam of light exceeds a
certain boundary. This is called nonlinear
refraction, because we get a nonlinear
diagram if the incident intensity is plotted
against the transmitted intensity. This
A property of light is that we may results in two levels: a low level and a high
look at it in two different ways: as level.
particles (photons) and as waves. Now we
The elements of a binary digital
are going to use the latter. Waves interfere
computer:
under certain circumstances. This means
Optical bistability and switching
that if two waves are aligned, they may
provide us with the means of building a
reinforce or destruct each other, dependent
binary digital computer. Gates and storage
on whether they are in equal or opposite
elements are useful transform a
phase. If the mirrors are placed at a
transphasor in to a logic gate and how to
distance equal to halfway an integral
build a storage elements using optical level intensity. This is exactly like an
bistability. AND gate in electronics.
Gates: To make an OR gate we only have
The logic performed by a to make sure that the high-level intensities
conventional computer is done with of the incident beams are equal to the
sixteen Boolean functions, but two of them switching-intensity of the transphasor. If
(AND, OR and NOT) are sufficient, one or both incident beams have high-level
because we can combine these to perform intensities, the transmitted beam has a
one of the other fourteen. We now show high-level intensity. Otherwise, both
that it is very easy to transform a incident beams must have a low-level
transphasor in either an AND or an OR intensity. Again the working of the optical
gate. Because there is no need for optical OR gate is very analogous to the working
bistability, a transphasor without of the electronic one.
hysteresis is needed. The optical NOT gate is
constructed by taking the reflected beam
as the output. As the reflected beam is the
inverse of the transmitted beam, an
increase of incident intensity produces low
output while decreasing the incident beam
provides high output.
Storage elements:
In a binary computer there is a
An AND gate is formed by taking need for storage elements able to represent
two incident beams acting as the two two stable states. If the high-level intensity
inputs of the gate. The high level represents a “1” and the low-level a “0”,
intensities of both beams must be lower putting a “1” in the device can be done by
than the switching intensity of the just by adding some other beam for a short
transphasor, but higher than half the while, such that the added intensity is just
switching-intensity. Both incident beams enough to get a high-level transmitted
are aimed at the same spot on the first intensity. Putting a “0” in the device can
mirror. Only if both incident beams have be done by just stopping the beam for a
an intensity. If both incident beams, or one short while.
of them, has an intensity below its high-
level, the transmitted beam will be of low- Assembling the elements:
 In order to communicate between various function/interconnection modules.
all the elements interconnection is needed. Latches (storage elements that preserve the
A reliable outcome signals need to be signal during one clock cycle) between the
synchronized by some sort of clock modules, also controlled by clock signal,
signals. It uses function/interconnection data can flow through the pipeline.
module and a pipelined processor. Advantages:
The function/interconnection module: 1. One of the major advantages of
The base of the design are the optical computing is to increase the
function/interconnection modules that are speed of computation, light travels at
programmable with 16 customizing inputs. 186,000 miles per second i.e. in one
The idea is to combine signal-pairs nano second photos of light travels just
(a signal pair consists of a signal and its a bit less than a foot. It is enough to do
inverse, say A and A or B and B) using things very quickly in micro
four tri-input AND gates. This is called miniaturized computer chips.
functional logic block. 2. Optical computer is immune to
Two functional logic blocks electro magnetic interference and free
(having two signal-pairs as input and one from electrical short circuits.
signal-pair as output) can be combined 3. They have low loss of transmission
yielding a functional logical cell. It is clear and provide large bandwidth capable
that the output of such a cell can be used of propagating signals within the same
as one of the input pairs of another cell. or adjacent fibers with essential no
Grouping two functional logic cells interference or cross talk.
(having a total of two input pairs, two 4. Another major advantage of optical
output pairs and sixteen customizing methods over electronic ones is
inputs) gives a function/interconnection computing is the optical data
module usable both to perform logic processing can be done much easier
operations as to interconnect various logic and less expensive in parallel than can
functions. be done in electronics.
A pipelined processor: Conclusion:
The function/interconnection module are
cascadable to form a pipelined processor,
programmable do every wanted
computation. Synchronization is done
using a clock signal. The clock signal can
control the customizing inputs of the
 Researches are working to replace
all electronic components with optical
ones. Soon we can see computers which
have the capability of computing more
than ten or more times faster than now
present conventional electronic computers.