An Ultra-High Speed Incoherent-to-Coherent Converter for Optical Computing.
Abstract
Many optical computing problems are centered around the processing of incoherent images. These images may be conventional visible light such as those taken with a CCD imager or camcorder. They may also take the form of infrared images in the case of missile seekers or x-ray images from medical or other sources. For optical processing, these images must be converted to either phase or amplitude modulated coherent light. This is typically accomplished by electronically feeding the originally captured image into a spatial light modulator (c.g., liquid crystal or deformable mirror array) and modulating a coherent reference beam with the 2 dimensional data pattern. The electrical input to the SLM creates a data flow bottleneck in the optical processing system due to the inherently serial input architecture. SMD has proposed a novel incoherent to coherent image converter which solves this problem by providing a massively parallel, optical input feed capability. The proposed architecture utilizes a novel combination of micromachining and ultra-thinned wafer technology to achieve an integrated incoherent to coherent image converter. The converter is capable of directly converting UV, IR, visible, and x-ray energy to a coherent light representation allowing for maximum utilization of downstream optical processing.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 28, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA301033
Entities
People
- David W. Gardner