Abstract

The use of optics for increasing the performance of signal handling systems beyond what can be achieved with electronics alone is becoming of more and more interest in a wide variety of areas. Optical communications via fiber links, interchip data routing via on chip emitters and detectors, integrated opto-electronics for a variety of circuit functions, and optical computing, all offer potential performance gains not only in speed and data handling capacity but also in ease of implementation. Associative memories and robot vision for example are applications seemingly naturally suited to optics.

© 1989 Optical Society of America