A scheme for the development of a trinary logic unit (TLU) using polarization-based optical switches

Abstract

Frequency-encoded optical processors based on multivalued logic (MVL) will play a significant role in future all-optical networks. In this work, basic optical logic gates are designed using a modified trinary system, exploiting the switching action of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) based on the principle of the nonlinear rotation of the polarization of a probe beam in the presence of a pump beam. A control unit capable of performing OR, AND, and XOR logic operations depending on the frequency of the control signal is then developed. Finally, a trinary logic unit is designed to execute 27 different logic operations. The feasibility of these proposals is confirmed by simulation results. In this approach, each trinary bit, i.e., “trit,” is represented by a unique frequency, which in turn helps to address the noise margin problem that arises in intensity-encoded MVL systems. This scheme can therefore play an important role in errorless optical computing and processing.