Photonic Signal Processing for Logic and Computation

Abstract

Photonic signal processing and computing take advantage of the subpicosecond response time of nonlinear optical phenomena to perform high speed operations either on analog and digital optical signals directly in the optical domain, thus avoiding any electro-optic conversion. This chapter first provides a theoretical explanation of the main nonlinear processes and the key enabling technologies exploited in all-optical signal processing applications. In the last two section of the chapter a description of several schemes, used for signal processing, all-optical logic operation and computation, with the respective experimental characterization, are reported.