A 160-Femtosecond Optical Image Processor Based on a Conjugated Polymer
Craig Halvorson 1,
Andrew Hays 1,
Brett Kraabel 1,
Rulian Wu 1,
Fred Wudl 1, and
Alan J. Heeger 1
1 Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93016, USA.
Degenerate ground-state conjugated polymers exhibit large third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities, including substantial two-photon absorption. With the use of a machine architecture suited to these material properties, ultrafast optical processors are possible. A four-wave mixing optical correlator was built with an air-stable, processable, degenerate ground-state conjugated polymer, poly(1,6-heptadiester). The continuously updatable processor correlates two 5000-pixel images in less than 160 femtoseconds, achieving peak processing rates of 3 x 1016 operations per second.
Submitted on May 5, 1994
Accepted on July 13, 1994
