Abstract

Optical logic gates are very essential and basic elements for an optical computer. In this paper all-optical polarization-coded logic gates (OPLG’s) are introduced. The OPLG’s consist of beam splitters and optical logic units (OLU’s). The OLU will rotate the polarization of a reference beam by either 90° or 0°, depending on whether the control beam is off or on, respectively. The control beam represents the binary input, which is either zero or one. Logic one and zero are represented by a laser diode being on and off, respectively. A novel design for 16 binary logic operations is presented. The experimental results of these logic operations will be reported later.

© 1992 Optical Society of America