Optical Switching and Optical Logic in a Thermally Expanding Si Etalon

Abstract

Optical switching in a thermally expanding Si etalon has been demonstrated. In this experiment a pulsed CO2 laser beam is used to heat a Si etalon and shift the interference fringe of a 1.5 micro probe beam. It is shown that the switching time can be greatly reduced from ms to micron by choosing a probe beam of shorter wavelength in an external switching configuration. By aligning one etalon at switch-on and another at switch-off, we demonstrate a write and erase logic system.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 06, 1990
Accession Number
ADA230706

Entities

People

  • E. A. Irene
  • S. T. Feng

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Carbon Dioxide Lasers
  • Chemistry
  • Classification
  • Laser Beams
  • Lasers
  • Materials
  • Military Research
  • North Carolina
  • Optical Switching
  • Parallel Computing
  • Parallel Processing
  • Physics
  • Security
  • Switches
  • Thermal Expansion
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Optical Physics and Photonics.

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Directed Energy - Lasers