Restoring Optical Logic: Demonstration Of Extensible All-Optical Digital Systems

Abstract

We show experimentally how nonlinear all-optical circuit elements can be used to create indefinitely extensible optical logic. By using a "lock and clock" architecture and an off-axis configuration of the power and signal beams, we avoid signal corruption and maintain an undiminished signal level through cascaded devices. Several loop circuits have been operated to simulate an optical classical finite state machine.