Optical Computing

SUPERIOR UNIVERSITY LAHORE

Faculty of Computer Science & IT

Final Year Project

PROJECT REPORT
[OPTICAL COMPUTING]
Project Team

Student Name Student ID Program Contact Number Email Address

Adeel Ahmed BSEM-F18-156 BSSE 4A 0304-4089191 [email protected]

Umer Hafeez BSEM-F18-157 BSSE 4A 0320-9432371 [email protected]

Umair Irshad BSEM-F18-158 BSSE 4A 0331-6378121 [email protected]

[Project Supervisor]
([Sir. Muhammad Aqeel])

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Table of Content

1.History of Optical Computing ...............................................................................................3

2.What is Optical Computing .................................................................................................12
2.1.Optical Components ........................................................................................................13
2.1.1. VCSEL ..........................................................................................................................14
2.1.2. Spatial Light Modulators ..............................................................................................14
2.1.3. Optical Logical Gates ...................................................................................................15
2.1.4.Smart Pixels ..................................................................................................................15
2.2.Need of Optical Computers .............................................................................................16
3.Working Principle ...............................................................................................................19
4. Application ........................................................................................................................21
5.Advantages/ Disadvantages................................................................................................22
5.1.Advantages......................................................................................................................22
5.2.Disadvantages .................................................................................................................23
6. Uses ..................................................................................................................................24
7. Future ...............................................................................................................................25
8.Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................26

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Optical Computing

Abstract
Optical computing is a very interesting 60-year old field of research. This paper
gives a brief historical review of the life of optical computing from the early days
until today. Optical computing generated a lot of enthusiasm in the sixties with
major breakthroughs opening a large number of perspectives. The period between
1980 and 2000 could be called the golden age with numerous new technologies
and innovating optical processors designed and constructed for real applications.
Today the field of optical computing is not ready to die, it has evolved and its
results benefit to new research topics such as Nano optics, bio photonics, or
communication systems.

1. History:

Optical computing is a very interesting 60-year old field of research. This paper
gives a brief historical review of the life of optical computing from the early days
until today. Optical computing generated a lot of enthusiasm in the sixties with
major breakthroughs opening a large number of perspectives. The period between
1980 and 2000 could be called the golden age with numerous new technologies
and innovating optical processors designed and constructed for real applications.
Today the field of optical computing is not ready to die, it has evolved and its
results benefit to new research topics such as Nano optics, bio photonics, or
communication systems.

The knowledge of some history of sciences is useful for understanding the

evolution of a research domain, its successes and failures. Optical computing is an
interesting candidate for a historical review. This research field is also named
optical information processing, and now the terms of information optics or
information photonics are frequently used, reflecting the evolution of the domain.
Optical computing is approximately 60 years old and it is a well-defined domain
with its own specialized conferences, sections in the scientific journals and its own
research programs and funding. It was also very active worldwide and therefore it
is impossible in the frame of a paper to describe all the research results. Numerous
books were written on the subject, for example, the following books describe the
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state of the art of optical computing at the time of their publication in 1972 [1], in
1981-82 [2, 3], in 1989 [4], and in 1998-99 [5, 6].
Since optical computing is such a well-defined field over such a long period of
time, it is interesting to study its evolution and this study can be helpful to
understand why some research domains were very successful during only a limited
period of time while other have generated numerous applications that are still in
use. From the beginning there was a lot of questioning about the potential of optics
for computing whereas there was no doubt about the potential and the future of
electronics. Caulfield wrote in 1998 an interesting and enlightening paper on the
perspectives in optical computing [7] where he discusses this competition between
optics and electronics and shows that there were three phases, first “ignorance and
underestimation” of electronics then “awakening and fear inferiority” and now
“realistic acceptance that optical computing and electronics are eternal partners”.
The purpose of this paper is to show a short history of optical computing from the
origin until today. This historical overview will show that the first years generated
a lot of enthusiasm regarding the potential of optics for information processing,
this period was followed by a small slowdown before the golden age that started
around 1980 until the beginning of the new century.
Section 2 presents the basic principles of optical information processing,
Section 3 gives a historical review of the research from the first years until 1980
and Section 4 describes the research activity from 1980 to 2004. Section 5 shows
the evolution of the domain until today.
Optical or photonic computing uses photons produced by lasers or diodes for
computation. For decades, photons have promised to allow a
higher bandwidth than the electrons used in conventional computers (see optical
fibers).
Most research projects focus on replacing current computer components with
optical equivalents, resulting in an optical digital computer system
processing binary data. This approach appears to offer the best short-term
prospects for commercial optical computing, since optical components could be
integrated into traditional computers to produce an optical-electronic hybrid.
However, optoelectronic devices lose 30% of their energy converting electronic
energy into photons and back; this conversion also slows the transmission of
messages. All-optical computers eliminate the need for optical-electrical-optical
(OEO) conversions, thus lessening the need for electrical power. [1

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INTRODUCTION

Optical computing has been one of the most important areas of research for the
past sixty years. This paper gives a brief historical review of the life of optical
computing from the early days until today. The interest in Optical computing
started in the sixties with major breakthroughs opening a large number of
perspectives. The period after 1980’s could be called the golden age as various
new inventions and applications of optical computing were developed. Even today
the optical computing is an important area of research and has evolved and its
results benefit to new research topics such as Nano optics, bio photonics, or
communication systems.

Optical computing has been of great importance over a long period of time and
hence it is interesting to study its evolution. A debate about using optics in
computers has been since the beginning whereas there was no doubt about the
potential and the future of electronics. Caulfield in 1998 wrote a paper on the
perspectives in optical computing where he discusses this competition between
optics and electronics and shows that there were three phases, first “ignorance and
underestimation” of electronics then “awakening and fear inferiority” and now
“realistic acceptance that optical computing and electronics are eternal partners”.

The purpose of this paper is to study the evolution of optical computing from the
origin until today. This study will lead us to understand the beginning of Optical
computing which slowed down after a great start until the mid-80’s, after which
various applications of optical computing have been developed.

Section 2 presents the Fundamentals of optical information processing, Section

3 gives a historical review of the research until 1980 and Section 4 describes the
research activity from 1980 to 2004. Section 5 shows the evolution of the domain
until today.

Basics of Optical Information Processing

Optical information processing is based on the idea of processing the information

at high- using all the properties of speed and parallelism of the light. The in-
formation ma y be in the form of an optical signal or image. One of the most
highlighted advantages of optical pro- cussing compared to electronic processing
computers was inherent parallel processing Hence, optics has an important
potential for processing large amount of data in real time. The basis of optical
computing is the Fourier transform of a lens. When using coherent light, the

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Fourier trans- form of a 2D transparency located in t h e front focal plane of a lens,

is performed in its back focal plane. The exact Fourier transform with the
amplitude and the phase is computed in an analog way by the lens.

Optical Processor Architecture

The processor is the combination of three planes: the input plane, the processing
plane, and the output plane.
The data to be processed are displayed in the input plane. A Spatial Light
Modulator (SLM) is used to per- form an electrical to optical conversion, in this
plane for most of the time. The input signal can be 1D or 2D. A
1D input signal uses an acousto-optic cell and 2D SLMs
for 2D signals. The processing plane can be composed of
lenses, holograms (optically recorded or computer genre-
acted) or nonlinear components. This is the heart of the
processing, and in most optical processors, this part can be
performed at the speed of the light.
A photo detector array, a photo detector, or a camera
com- poses the output plane where the results of the processing are detected.

Optical Processors Classical Architectures.

Al-time pattern recognition was seen as one of the most

promising application of optical processors in the beginning
and the following two architectures of optical correlates
were proposed because of them.
the distance between the input plane and the output
plane is four times the focal length of the lenses. It was
the basic correlates. This very simple architecture is based
on the work of Mare´ chalk and Croce in 1953 on spatial

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June-2013 2573

ISSN 2229-5518

Filtering and was developed during the following years by several authors
The input scene is displayed in the input plane which Fourier transform is
performed by Lens 1. The complex conjugated of the Fourier transform of the
reference is placed in the Fourier plane and therefore multiplied by the Fourier
transform of the input scene. Lens 2 per- forms a second Fourier transform t ha t
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gives in the out-put plane

the correlation between the input scene and the reference.
Implementing a complex filter with the Fourier transform of the reference was the
main challenge of this set-up, and Vander Lugt proposed in 1964 to use a Fourier
hologram of the reference as a filter. the output correlation peak for an
autocorrelation when the correlation filter is a matched filter and when it is a phase
only filter In 1966, Weaver and Goodman presented optical
correlate architecture, the joint transform correlate (JTC)

that is represented by two images, the reference r (x, y) and the scene s(x, y) are
placed side by side in the input plane that is Fourier transformed by the first lens.
The intensity of the joint spectrum is detected and then its Fourier transform is
performed. This second Fourier transform is composed by several terms including
the cross correlations between the scene and the reference. coherent
Optical processors. Incoherent optical processors were also proposed: the
information is not carried by complex wave amplitudes but by wave intensities.
Incoherent
processors are not sensitive to the phase variations in the input plane and they
exhibit no c oh Edenton is However, the non-negative real value of the information
imposes s to use various tricks for the implementation of some signal processing
applications.

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The Rise of Optical Computing (1945–1980)

Since the f if t i.e. s Information optic s is a recognized branch of optics. However,

historically, the knife -edge test by Foucault in 1859 [20] can originate the optical
in- formation processing. Other contributors can be noted such as Abbe in 1873
that developed the theory of image formation in the microscope, or Zernike who
presented in 1934 the phase contrast filter. In 1946, Duffieux made a major
contribution with the publication of a book on the use of the Fourier methods in
optics.
Optical computing is based on a new way of analyzing the optical problems;
indeed, the concepts of communications and information theory constitute the basis
of optical information processing.

The Future of Optical Information Processing

As Seen in 1962.

In order to understand the evolution of optical computing, it is enlightening to see

the topics of discussions in the early sixties. For example, in October 1962, a
“Symposium on Optical Processing of Information” was held in Washington DC,
cosponsored by the Information System
Branch of the Office of Naval Research and the American
Optical Company. About 425 scientists attended this meeting
and Proceedings were published. The preface of the
proceedings shows that the purpose of this symposium was to bring together
researchers from the fields of op- tics and information processing. The authors of
the preface recognize that optics can be used for special- purpose optical
processors in the fields of pattern recognition, character recognition, and
information re-
trivial, since optical systems over in these cases the ability to process many items
parallel.
It is interesting to list the topics of the symposium: optical effects (spatial filtering,
laser, fiber optics, modulation and control, detection, electroluminescent, and
photo on-
ductile) and data processing (needs, biological systems, bionic systems,
photographic, logical systems, optical storage systems, and pattern recognition). It
can be not- end that one of the speakers, Teaser from MIT, pointed out that for him
the development of an optical general-purpose computer was highly premature
because the optical technology was not ready in order to compete with the

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electronic computers. For him, the optical computers will have a different form
than electronic computers; they will be more parallel.

The Golden Era of Optical Computing (1980–

2004)

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June-2013 2574

ISSN 2229-5518

The time between 1980 and 2004 could be called the optical computing golden
age. There was a lot of encouragement in the field, the future looked very bright,
and there was monetary help for the research effort was also available worldwide.
The journals had frequently a special issue on the topics and Applied Optics had
every 10th of month an issue entitled “Information Processing”. The research was
very fruitful in all the domains of optical information processing including
theoretical work on algorithms, analog and digital computing, linear and non-
linear computing. Optical correlates for real applications were even com-
serialized. However, around 2000, we could feel the de- cline in the subject. The
reasons are multiple, but the evolution of digital computers in term of performance,
power and also flexibility can be pointed out. They are also very easy to use even
for a non- specialist.
It is impossible to list here all the work carried out in the domain from 1980 to
2004. Several books give the state of the art of the domain at the time of their
publication [4, 6]. In the following, we shall study only some aspects of the
research during this period, and we apologize for some important results that may
be missing. The sole purpose is to give to reader an idea of the evolution of the
domain during this period.

From Computer Generated Holograms to Diffractive optical elements

CGHs are important components for optical processing

since they can process the information. The first CGHs
were cell-oriented since they were well adapted to the power of the computers with
a small memory capacity. In the eighties, the technological landscape evolved,
more powerful computers with a larger memory capacity were available, and
therefore new encoding methods, the point- oriented methods, were developed in
order to achieve high quality and high diffraction efficiency optical recon-
striations of the CGHs.First, the error diffusion algorithm,
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used for printing

Applications, was adapted to encode CGHs where it was possible to separate the
noise from the desired pattern in the reconstruction pl a n e . Then, iterative
algorithms were proposed and the best known are the Direct Binary Search (DBS)
algorithm proposed by Seldowitz et al. in a reconstruction with a high signal to
noise ratio and high diffraction efficiency especially in the case of pure phase
CGHs.
Later some refinements were proposed, for example the introduction of an optimal
multicriteria approach. It should be noted that these iterative methods are still used.
In the nineties, the main progress concerns the fabrication methods with the use of
lithographic techniques allowing the fabrication of high precision phase only
components
etched into quartz.

Since the availability of SLMs was an important issue for the success of optical
information processing, a lot of report has been invested after 1980 into the
development of SLMs fulfilling the optical processors requirements in terms of
speed, resolution, and size and modulation c a- p ability . A paper written by Fisher
and Lee gives the status of the 2D SLM technology in 1987 and shows that, at this
time, the best feasible SLM performance values are found to include:
about 100 × 100 resolution elements, 10-Hz framing rates,
1-s storage, less than 50 μJ/cm2 sensitivity, five-level dynamic
range, and 10-percent spatial uniformity.
Many deferent SLMs have been proposed and ma n y prototypes fabricated for
example, besides liquid crystal SLMs, magneto-optic SLMs, multiple quantum
wells devices (MQW) Si PLZT SLMs and Deformable Mirror Devices. However
very few of these SLMs have survived. Therefore, today, among the SLMs
commercially available, mostly for display purpose, two technologies prevail:
liquid crystal technology and Digital Micro- mirrors Devices DMD (MEMS based
technology).
In conclusion, since the origin of the optical processors, commercially available
SLMs are fulfilling the requirements in terms of speed, modulation capability, and
resolution. The applications of SLMs are numerous, for example, recent papers
have reported different applications of LCoS SLMs, such as pulse shaping,
quantum key distribution, hologram reconstruction, computer generated
holograms, DOEs, optical tweezers, optical metrology.

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Optical Computing Today

The traditional field of optical computing is no longer so active, it has evolved

tremendously. Today, numerous research topics benefit from the results of the
research in optical computing and therefore the field is perhaps no longer so well
defined. Several signs show that the activity has changed.
The research on optical correlates is continued by
fewer research teams, however it should be noted that the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) is still working on optical correlates for real time automatic
target recognition. Some of the algorithms developed for pattern recognition
initially for optical processing are now used success- fully in digital computers.
DOEs are now a part of numerous industrial products. All the research on the
fabrication of DOEs made possible the fabrication of nano structures and very
exciting new fields of research such as nan photonics, nanofluidics and opt
fluidics.
Biophotonics is an exponentially growing field that is largely benefiting from the
past research in optical pro-

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ISSN 2229-5518

cussing. Typical examples are the optical tweezers and the optical trapping.
Thanks to the digital holography, where the holographic plate is replaced by a
camera, holography is particularly used for the quality control of manufactured
products, and for digital holographic microscopy.

2. What is Optical Computers……..???

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Definition:

An Optical computer is a computer that uses Photons in visible light or IR beams

to perform digital computation. In simplest terms, traditional computing
hardware/processor performs operations by moving electrons in/out of transistors
whereas optical computing relies on tiny-light-elements known as photons to
perform operations which are generated using special diodes or extremely small
laser devices.

Optical or photonic computing uses photons produced by lasers or diodes for

computation. For decades, photons have promised to allow a
higher bandwidth than the electrons used in conventional computers (see optical
fibers).
Most research projects focus on replacing current computer components with
optical equivalents, resulting in an optical digital computer system
processing binary data. This approach appears to offer the best short-term
prospects for commercial optical computing, since optical components could be
integrated into traditional computers to produce an optical-electronic hybrid.
However, optoelectronic devices lose 30% of their energy converting electronic
energy into photons and back; this conversion also slows the transmission of
messages. All-optical computers eliminate the need for optical-electrical-optical
(OEO) conversions, thus lessening the need for electrical power. [1]
Application-specific devices, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical
correlates, have been designed to use the principles of optical computing.
Correlates can be used, for example, to detect and track objects, [2] and to classify
serial time-domain optical data

Example:

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The flow of electric current is only 10 percent of the speed of light. This poses
severe restrictions on long distance data transmission. Such restrictions resulted in
the evolution of optical fiber. By applying the advantages of IR networks and/or
visible light at the component and device scale, a computer (Optical Computer) can
be developed that has 10 times more processing power than conventional systems.

2.1. Optical Components

The main Optical components required for computing in an Optical Computer are:

 VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Micro Laser)

 Spatial Light Modulators
 Optical Logical Gates
 Smart Pixels

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2.1.1. VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Micro Laser)

VCSEL is a semiconductor Micro Laser Diode that emits light vertically from the
surface. It basically converts the Electrical Signal to Optical Signal. It is the best
example of one dimensional Photonic Crystal.

2.1.2. Spatial Light Modulators

Spatial Light Modulators are responsible for modulating the intensity and the phase
of the Optical beam. They are used in Holographic Data Storage systems as they
encode the information into a laser beam.

2.1.3. Optical Logic Gates

An Optical Logic Gate is nothing but an Optical Switch that controls the light
beams. It is said to be “ON” when the device transmits light and “OFF” when the
device blocks the light.

2.1.4. Smart Pixels

Smart Pixels help Optical Systems with high levels of Electronic Signal
Processing.

The fundamental building block of modern electronic computers is the transistor.

To replace electronic components with optical ones, an equivalent optical
transistor is required. This is achieved using materials with a non-linear refractive
index. In particular, materials exist where the intensity of incoming light affects the
intensity of the light transmitted through the material in a similar manner to the
current response of a bipolar transistor. Such an optical transistor can be used to
create optical logic gates, which in turn are assembled into the higher level
components of the computer's CPU. These will be nonlinear optical crystals used
to manipulate light beams into controlling other light beams.
Like any computing system, an Optical computing system needs three things to
function well:

1. optical processor
2. optical data transfer, e.g. Fiber optic cable
3. optical storage, e.g. CD/DVD/Blu-ray, etc.

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Substituting electrical components will need data format conversion from photons
to electrons, which will make the system slower.

Controversy

There are disagreements between researchers about the future capabilities of

optical computers; whether or not they may be able to compete with
semiconductor-based electronic computers in terms of speed, power consumption,
cost, and size is an open question. Critics note that real-world logic systems require
"logic-level restoration, cascadability, fan-out and input–output isolation", all of
which are currently provided by electronic transistors at low cost, low power, and
high speed. For optical logic to be competitive beyond a few niche applications,
major breakthroughs in non-linear optical device technology would be required, or
perhaps a change in the nature of computing itself.

Misconceptions, challenges, and prospects

A significant challenge to optical computing is that computation is

a nonlinear process in which multiple signals must interact. Light, which is
an electromagnetic wave, can only interact with another electromagnetic wave in
the presence of electrons in a material,[10] and the strength of this interaction is
much weaker for electromagnetic waves, such as light, than for the electronic
signals in a conventional computer. This may result in the processing elements for
an optical computer requiring more power and larger dimensions than those for a
conventional electronic computer using transistors.

A further misconception is that since light can travel much faster than the drift
velocity of electrons, and at frequencies measured in THz, optical transistors
should be capable of extremely high frequencies. However, any electromagnetic
wave must obey the transform limit, and therefore the rate at which an optical
transistor can respond to a signal is still limited by its spectral bandwidth.
However, in fiber optic communications, practical limits such as dispersion often
constrain channels to bandwidths of 10s of GHz, only slightly better than many
silicon transistors. Obtaining dramatically faster operation than electronic
transistors would therefore require practical methods of transmitting ultrashort
pulses down highly dispersive waveguides.

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2.2. Why we need Optical Computers……..???

The need for Optical Computer (s) emerged from the fact that the conventional
computers are limited by the time response of electronic circuits and also the
building up of heat damages the electronic components. For example:
Microprocessors contain billions of transistors and sometimes they operate at clock
speeds in excess of 3 billion cycles per second which implies that the transistors
are exposed to lots of heat, which accelerates their chances of damage.

1) In Silicon Computer the speed of computer was achieved by miniaturizing

electronic components
2) They are immune to electromagnetic interference and free from electrical
short circuits
3) They have low loss transmission and provide large bandwidth

I.e. multiplexing capability, capable of communicating several channels in

parallel without interference.

Photonic logic as optical computing.

Realization of a photonic controlled-NOT gate for use in quantum computing

Photonic logic is the use of photons (light) in logic gates (NOT, AND, OR,
NAND, NOR, XOR, XNOR). Switching is obtained using nonlinear optical
effects when two or more signals are combined.
Resonators are especially useful in photonic logic, since they allow a build-up of
energy from constructive interference, thus enhancing optical nonlinear effects.
Other approaches that have been investigated include photonic logic at a molecular
level, using photo luminescent chemicals. In a demonstration, Whitlock et al.
performed logical operations using molecules and SERS.

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Time delays optical computing

The basic idea is to delay light (or any other signal) in order to perform useful
computations. Of interest would be to solve NP-complete problems as those are
difficult problems for the conventional computers.
There are 2 basic properties of light that are actually used in this approach:

 The light can be delayed by passing it through an optical fiber of a certain

length.
 The light can be split into multiple (sub) rays. This property is also essential
because we can evaluate multiple solutions in the same time.
When solving a problem with time-delays the following steps must be followed:

 The first step is to create a graph-like structure made from optical cables and
splitters. Each graph has a start node and a destination node.
 The light enters through the start node and traverses the graph until it reaches
the destination. It is delayed when passing through arcs and divided inside
nodes.
 The light is marked when passing through an arc or through an node so that we
can easily identify that fact at the destination node.
 At the destination node we will wait for a signal (fluctuation in the intensity of
the signal) which arrives at a particular moment(s) in time. If there is no signal
arriving at that moment, it means that we have no solution for our problem.
Otherwise the problem has a solution. Fluctuations can be read with a photo
detector and an oscilloscope.
The first problem attacked in this way was the Hamiltonian path problem.
The simplest one is the subset sum problem. An optical device solving an instance
with 4 numbers {a1, a2, a3, a4} is depicted below:

The light will enter in Start node. It will be divided into 2 (sub)rays of smaller
intensity. These 2 rays will arrive into the second node at moments a1 and 0. Each
of them will be divided into 2 subrays which will arrive in the 3rd node at
moments 0, a1, a2 and a1 + a2. These represent the all subsets of the set {a1, a2}.

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We expect fluctuations in the intensity of the signal at no more than 4 different

moments. In the destination node we expect fluctuations at no more than 16
different moments (which are all the subsets of the given). If we have a fluctuation
in the target moment B, it means that we have a solution of the problem; otherwise
there is no subset whose sum of elements equals B. For the practical
implementation we cannot have zero-length cables, thus all cables are increased
with a small (fixed for all) value k. In this case the solution is expected at moment
B+n*k.
Wavelength-based computing
Wavelength-based computing can be used to solve the 3-SAT problem with n
variables, m clause and with no more than 3 variables per clause. Each wavelength,
contained in a light ray, is considered as possible value-assignments to n variables.
The optical device contains prisms and mirrors are used to discriminate proper
wavelengths which satisfy the formula.
Computing by Xeroxing on transparencies
This approach uses a Xerox machine and transparent sheets for performing
computations. k-SAT problem with n variables, m clauses and at most k variables
per clause has been solved in 3 steps:

 Firstly all 2^n possible assignments of n variables have been generated by

performing n Xerox copies.
 Using at most 2k copies of the truth table, each clause is evaluated at every row
of the truth table simultaneously.
 The solution is obtained by making a single copy operation of the overlapped
transparencies of all m clauses.
Masking optical beams
The travelling salesman problem has been solved in by using an optical approach.
All possible TSP paths have been generated and stored in a binary matrix which
was multiplied with another gray-scale vector containing the distances between
cities. The multiplication is performed optically by using an optical correlate.
Optical Fourier coprocessors
Many computations, particularly in scientific applications, require frequent use of
the 2D discrete Fourier transform (DFT) – for example in solving differential
equations describing propagation of waves or transfer of heat. Though modern
GPU technologies typically enable high-speed computation of large 2D DFTs,
techniques have been developed that can perform continuous Fourier transform
optically by utilizing the natural Fourier transforming property of lenses. The input

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is encoded using a liquid crystal spatial light modulator and the result is measured
using a conventional CMOS or CCD image sensor. Such optical architectures can
offer superior scaling of computational complexity due to the inherently highly
interconnected nature of optical propagation, and have been used to solve 2D heat
equations.
Icing machines
Physical computers whose design was inspired by the theoretical Ising model are
called Ising machines.
Yoshihisa Yamamoto pioneered building Ising machines using photons. Initially
Yamamoto and his colleagues built an Ising machine using lasers, mirrors, and
other optical components commonly found on an optical table.
Later a team at Hewlett Packard Labs including Dave Kielpinski
developed photonic chip design tools and used them to build an Ising machine on a
single chip, integrating 1,052 optical components on that single chip.

3. Working principle:

The working principle of Optical Computer is similar to the conventional computer

except with some portions that performs functional operations in Optical mode.
Photons are generated by LED’s, lasers and a variety of other devices. They can be
used for encoding the data similar to electrons.

Design and implementation of Optical transistors is currently under progress with

the ultimate aim of building Optical Computer. Multi design Optical transistors are
being experimented with. A ninety degree rotating, polarizing screen can
effectively block a light beam. Optical transistors are also made from dielectric
materials that have the potential to act as polarizer’s. Optical logic gates are
slightly challenging, but fundamentally possible. They would involve one control
and multiple beams that would provide a correct logical output.

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– (a) Optical Network on Chip (b) Photonic Chip on Circuit

Electrons have one superior advantage in that, silicon channels and copper wires
can be turned and electrons would follow. This effect can be emulated in Optical
Chips using Plasmatic Nano particles. They are used for turning corners and
continue on their path without major power loss or electron conversions.

Most parts of an Optical chip resemble any other commercially found computer
chip. Electrons are deployed in the parts that transform or process information. The
interconnects however, have drastic changes. These interconnects are used for
information shuttling between different chip areas. Instead of electron shuttling,
which might slow down when interconnects heat up, light is shuttled. This is
because light can be easily contained and has an advantage of less information loss
during travel.

Researchers are hoping that this swift communication process might result in the
development of exascale computers i.e. computers that perform billions of
calculations every second, 1000 times more processing speed than current
speediest systems.

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 Optical Computing

4. Applications:
Optical computers in communication.
 Wave length division multiplexing
 Optical amplifiers
 Storage area network
 Fiber channels topologies
Basic topologies

FC-AC (fiber channel, arbitration channel)

Cost effective, low performance solution.

Switched

Better performance, more expensive.

Hybrid topologies.

Use loops and switched as building blocks.

Optical computing in VLSI Computing.

Many researchers have been investigating suitable optical logic devices,
interconnection schemes and artichectures. Furthermore optic may provide
drastically new artichetures to remove some artichetual problems of conventional
electrical computers.

Optical computers as expanders.

The optical expander described utilizes high speed and high space bandwidth
product connections that are provided by optical beams in three dimensions

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 Optical Computing

5. Advantages/Disadvantages:

5.1. Advantages

The advantages of Optical Computer are:

 Optical computer has several major advantages of high density, small size, low
junction heating, high speed, dynamically scalable and reconfigurable into smaller/
larger networks/ topologies, massive parallel computing ability and AI
applications.
 Apart from speed, Optical interconnections have several advantages. They are
impervious to electromagnetic interference and are not prone to electrical short
circuits.
 They offer low-loss transmission and large bandwidth for parallel communication
of several channels.
 Optical processing of data is inexpensive and much easier than the processing done
on electronic components.
 Since photons are not charged, they do not readily interact with one another as
electrons. This adds another advantage in that, light beams pass through each other
in full duplex operation.
 Optical materials have greater accessibility and storage density than magnetic
materials.
 The advantages of Optical Computer are: Optical computer has several
major advantages of high density, small size, low junction heating, high
speed, dynamically scalable and reconfigurable into smaller/ larger
networks/ topologies, massive parallel computing ability and AI
applications.

5.2. Disadvantages
The disadvantages of Optical Computer are:

 Manufacturing Photonic Crystals is challenging.

 Computation is complex as it involves interaction of multiple signals.

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 Optical Computing

 Bulky in size.
 Expensive Components. Parts for conventional computers are produced in
plants whose only job is to manufacture these parts therefore; the price is
low mainly do to mass production. ...
 Components are not the "right size" ...
 For the computer to work properly, the miniaturized components need to be
manufactured exactly.

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 Optical Computing

6. Uses:

Optics has been used to perform transforms and to form images, but decisions have
been made by filters prepared in advance or by an array of detectors and an
electronic computer. Input and output have often been the bottlenecks. Currently,
optics is used mostly to link portions of computers, or more intrinsically in
devices that have some optical application or component. For example, much
progress has been achieved, and optical signal processors have been
successfully used, for applications such as synthetic aperture radars, optical
pattern recognition, optical image processing, fingerprint enhancement, and
optical spectrum analyzers. The early work in optical signal processing and
computing was basically analog in nature. In the past two decades, however, a
great deal of effort has-been expended in the development of digital optical
processors.

• Optical tunnel devices are under continuous development varying from small
caliber endoscopes to character recognition systems with multiple type capability.

• Development of optical processors for asynchronous transfer mode.

• Development architectures for optical neural networks.

• Development of high accuracy analog optical processors, capable of

processing large amounts of data in parallel

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 Optical Computing

7. Future of Optical Computing:

We can see interesting developments in lasers and lights. These are taking over the
electronics in our computers. Optical technology is currently being promoted for
use in parallel processing, storage area networks, and Optical Data Networks,
Optical Switches, Biometric and Holographic storage devices at airports.

Processors now contain light detectors and tiny lasers that facilitate data
transmission through Optical Fiber. Few companies are even developing Optical
Processors that use Optical Switches and laser light to do the calculations. One of
the foremost promoters ‘Intel’ is creating an Integrated Silicon Photonics link that
is capable of transmitting 50 Gigabytes per second of uninterrupted information.

It is speculated that future computers would come without screens where

information presentation is made through a hologram, in the air, and above the
keyboard. This kind of technology is being made possible by the collaboration of
researchers and industrial experts. Also, Optical technologies most practical use
i.e. the ‘Optical Networking business’ is predicted to reach 3.5 billion dollars from
1 billion currently.

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 Optical Computing

8. Conclusion:
Optical has been used in computing for a number of years but the main
emphasis has been and continues to be to link portions of computers, for
communications, or mire intrinsically in devices that have some optical
application or component.
Optical digital computers are still some years away, however a number of
devices that can ultimately lead to real optical computers have already been
manufactured, including optical logic gates, optical switches, optical
interconnections, and optical memory.
The most likely near-term optical computer will really be a hybrid composed
of traditional architectural design along with some portions that can perform
some functional operations in optical mode.

The history of the development of the research in the field of optical

computing reveals an extraordinary scientific adventure. It started with the
processing power of coherent light and particularly its Fourier transform
capability. The history shows that considerable efforts were dedicated to the
construction of optical processors that could process in real time a large
amount of data. Today, we see that optics is very successful in information
systems such as communications and memories compared to its relative
failure in computing. This could have changed, if, in the seventies when the
electronic computers were slow and with a limited power, today components
such as efficient SLMs, laser diodes or high speed and high resolution
detectors would have been available. However, all the research results in
optical computing contribute strongly to the development of new research
topics such as biophotonics, nanophotonics, opt fluidics, and femtosecond
nonlinear optics. But, the dream of an all optical computer overcoming the
digital computer never became reality, and optical correlates for pattern
recognition have almost disappeared. The reasons are multiple. The speed of
the optical processor was always limited by the speed of the input and output
devices. Digital computer have progressed very rapidly, the Moore's law is
still valid, multi-core processors are more powerful, and it is clear that
digital computer are easier to use and offers more flexibility. Digital
computers have progressed faster than optical processors. Optical computing
is mostly analogue when electronic computing is digital. The digital optical
computers were not able to compete with the electronic due to the lack of
appropriate optical components. It appears clearly that the solution is to

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 Optical Computing

associate optics and electronics and to use optics only when it can bring
something that electronics cannot do. Optical processing is useful when the
information is optical and that no electronics to optics transducers are
needed.
The potential of optics for parallel real time processing remains and the
future will tell if optical computing will be back, for example, by using
nanotechnologies.
The history of optical computing reveals an extraordinary scientific
adventure. It started with the processing power of coherent light and
particularly its Fourier transform capability.
The history shows that considerable efforts were dedicated to the
construction of optical processors that could
process a large amount of data in considerable amount of time. Today,
Optics is very successful in information system s such as communications
and memories com- pared to its relative failure in computing.
All the research results in optical computing contribute
strongly to the development of new research topics such as biophotonics,
nanophotonics, opt fluidics, and femtosecond nonlinear optic s. But, the
dream of an all optical computer overcoming the digital computer never
became reality, and optical correlates for pattern recognition have almost
disappeared. The speed of the optical processor was always limited by the
speed of the input and output devices. Digital computer have progressed
very rapidly, the Moore’s law is still valid, multi-core processors are more
powerful, and it is clear that digital computer are easier to use and over’s
more flexibility. Digital computers have progressed faster than optical
processors. Optical computing is mostly analogue when electronic
computing is digital. Due to the lack of appropriate optical components
digital optical computers were not able to compete with the electronic. The
solution to this is to associate optics and electronics and to use optics only
when it can bring something that electronics cannot do. .
The potential of optics for parallel real time processing remains and the
future will tell if optical computing will be back, for example, by using
nanotechnologies.

27
Optical Computing

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