Optical logic operations using photoinduced anisotropy in bacteriorhodopsin films

Abstract

We constructed an optical system for performing 2D logic operations. We demonstrated the logic operations of OR, NOR, XOR, AND. The photoinduced dichroism of Bacteriorhodopsin (bR) is the physical mechanism exploited in the optical system. In its normal state with no light illumination a bR doped polymer film is isotropic with random distribution of bR molecules. When excited by linearly polarized light, only those bR molecules whose transition dipole moments for absorption lie in or near the direction of the electric field ar bleached at the actinic light wavelength due to the B to M transition. If a probe beam is incident in the regions illuminated by the actinic light it will no longer be interacting with an isotropic film. The film is now anisotropic and dichroic. Due to dichroism the actinic light illumination produces an angular rotation of the plane of polarization of the probe beam. In the experiments the bR film is kept between two crossed polarizers to get zero output from the probe beam at a screen when no actinic light is incident on the bR film. The two polarizers and the screen are kept in the path of the probe beam. There are two actinic light beams that induce dichroism and they are made orthogonally polarized with respect to each other by the use of a polarization rotator. The polarization rotator can be arranged so that their polarizations are made parallel for some of the logic operations. The plane of polarization of these two actinic beams are at 45 degrees to the pane of polarization of the probe beam. The combination of rotation of the analyzer and the polarization rotation of one of the actinic beams allows for many logic operations to be performed. No interference recordings are involved in the experiments and hence vibration isolation systems are not required. A coherent source is not a requirement either since a white light source with an appropriate wavelength filter can induce photoanisotropy in the bR film.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.