A Photorefractive Setup for Parallel Not-OR and Not-AND Operations with Mutually Incoherent Light

Abstract

We have demonstrated experimentally that optical Not-OR (NOR) and Not-AND (NAND) operations can be done with a single setup. The setup is capable of processing parallel inputs. Two barium titanate (BaTiO3) crystals are used in the setup and photorefractive effects are employed. Instead of using the interference between the two input signals to be processed or the so called local incoherent erasing, the setup works on the phenomenon of self-pumped phase conjugation and the suppression of it by the input signals in ordinarily polarized state. In this way, the two input channels can be mutually incoherent.