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Optical computing

Article in Resonance · July 2003

DOI: 10.1007/BF02837869

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 GENERAL | ARTICLE

Optical Computing
1. Optical Components and Storage Systems

Debabrata Goswami

Optics has been used in computing for a number of years

but the main emphasis has been and continues to be to
link portions of computers, for communications, or more
intrin- sically in devices that have some optical
application or component (optical pattern recognition,
Debabrata Goswami is at the
etc). Optical digi- tal computers are still some years away,
Tata Institute of Fundamen-
tal Research, Mumbai,
however a number of devices that can ultimately lead to real
where he explores the optical computers have already been manufactured,
applications of ultrafast including optical logic gates, optical switches, optical
shaped pulses to coherent
interconnections, and opti- cal memory. The most likely
control, high-speed
communication and
near-term optical computer will really be a hybrid
computing. He is also composed of traditional architectural design along with
associated as a Visiting some portions that can perform some functional
Faculty at IIT, Kanpur,
operations in optical mode.
where he will be teaching a
new course on Quantum Introduction
Computing. He had earlier
worked on developing the
With today’s growing dependence on computing technology,
first acousto-optic modu-
lated ultrafast pulse shaper
the need for high performance computers (HPC) has signifi-
as a part of his doctoral cantly increased. Many performance improvements in conven-
work at Princeton. tional computers are achieved by miniaturizing electronic com-
ponents to very small micron-size scale so that electrons need to
travel only short distances within a very short time. This ap-
proach relies on the steadily shrinking trace size on microchips
(i.e., the size of elements that can be ‘drawn’ onto each chip).
This has resulted in the development of Very Large Scale
Integration (VLSI) technology with smaller device dimensions
Keywords and greater complexity. The smallest dimensions of VLSI
Advanced materials, optical nowa- days are about 0.08 mm. Despite the incredible progress
switching, pulse shaping, opti-
in the development and refinement of the basic technologies
cal storage device, high-per-
formance computing, imaging,
over the past decade, there is growing concern that these
nanotechnology, photonics, technologies may not be capable of solving the computing
telecommunications. problems of even the current millennium. Applications of HPC

56 RESONANCE | June 2003

 GENERAL | ARTICLE

and visualization

RESONANCE | June 2003 57

 GENERAL | ARTICLE

technologies lead to breakthroughs in engineering and manu-

facturing in a wide range of industries. With the help of virtual Optical computing
product design and development, costs can be reduced; hence includes the optical
looking for improved computing capabilities is desirable. Opti- calculation of
cal computing includes the optical calculation of transforms and transforms and
optical pattern matching. Emerging technologies also make the optical pattern
optical storage of data a reality. matching. Emerging
technologies also
The speed of computers was achieved by miniaturizing elec- make the optical
tronic components to a very small micron-size scale, but they storage of data a
are limited not only by the speed of electrons in matter reality.
(Einstein’s principle that signals cannot propagate faster than
the speed of light) but also by the increasing density of
interconnections necessary to link the electronic gates on
microchips. The optical computer comes as a solution of
miniaturization problem. In an optical computer, electrons are
replaced by photons, the sub- atomic bits of electromagnetic
radiation that make up light. Optics, which is the science of
light, is already used in comput- ing, most often in the fiber-
optic glass cables that currently transmit data on communication
networks much faster than via traditional copper wires. Thus,
optical signals might be the ticket for the fastest supercomputers
ever. Compared to light, electronic signals in chips travel at
snail speed. Moreover, there is no such thing as a short circuit
with light, so beams could cross with no problem after being
redirected by pinpoint-size mirrors in a switchboard. In a
pursuit to probe into cutting-edge re- search areas, optical
technology (optoelectronic, photonic de- vices) is one of the
most promising, and may eventually lead to new computing
applications as a consequence of faster processor speeds, as
well as better connectivity and higher bandwidth.

The pressing need for optical technology stems from the fact
that today’s computers are limited by the time response of
electronic circuits. A solid transmission medium limits both the
speed and volume of signals, as well as building up heat that
damages components. For example, a one-foot length of wire
produces approximately one nanosecond (billionth of a second)
of time delay. Extreme miniaturization of tiny electronic com-

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Light does not ponents also leads to ‘cross-talk’ – signal errors that affect the
have the time system’s reliability. These and other obstacles have led scien-
response tists to seek answers in light itself. Light does not have the time
limitations of response limitations of electronics, does not need insulators,
electronics, does not and can even send dozens or hundreds of photon signal streams
need insulators, and simultaneously using different color frequencies. Those are
can even send immune to electromagnetic interference, and free from electri-
dozens or hundreds cal short circuits. They have low-loss transmission and provide
of photon signal large bandwidth; i.e. multiplexing capability, capable of com-
streams municating several channels in parallel without interference.
simultaneously using They are capable of propagating signals within the same or
different color adjacent fibers with essentially no interference or cross talk.
frequencies. They are compact, lightweight, and inexpensive to manufac-
ture, as well as more facile with stored information than mag-
netic materials. By replacing electrons and wires with photons,
fiber optics, crystals, thin films and mirrors, researchers are
hoping to build a new generation of computers that work 100
million times faster than today’s machines.

The fundamental issues associated with optical computing, its

advantages over conventional (electronics-based) computing,
current applications of optics in computers are discussed in this
part. In the second part of this article the problems that remian
to be overcome and current research will be discussed.

Background

Optical computing was a hot research area in the 1980s. But the
work tapered off because of materials limitations that seemed to
prevent optochips from getting small enough and cheap enough
to be more than laboratory curiosities. Now, optical computers
are back with advances in self-assembled conducting organic
polymers that promise super-tiny all-optical chips [1]. Ad-
vances in optical storage device have generated the promise of
efficient, compact and large-scale storage devices [2]. Another
advantage of optical methods over electronic ones for comput-
ing is that parallel data processing can frequently be done much
more easily and less expensively in optics than in electronics
[3].

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Parallelism, the capability to execute more than one operation

simultaneously, is now common in electronic computer archi- Optical technology
tectures. But, most electronic computers still execute instruc- promises massive
tions sequentially; parallelism with electronics remains sparsely upgrades in the
used. Its first widespread appearance was in Cray supercomputers efficiency and
in the early 1980’s when two processors were used in conjunc- speed of
tion with one shared memory. Today, large supercomputers computers, as well
may utilize thousands of processors but communication over- as significant
head frequently results in reduced overall efficiency [4]. On the shrinkage in their
other hand for some applications in input-output (I/O), such as size and cost. An
image processing, by using a simple optical design an array of optical desktop
pixels can be transferred simultaneously in parallel from one computer could be
point to another. capable of
processing data
Optical technology promises massive upgrades in the efficiency up to 100,000
and speed of computers, as well as significant shrinkage in their times faster than
size and cost. An optical desktop computer could be capable of current models
processing data up to 100,000 times faster than current models because multiple
because multiple operations can be performed simultaneously. operations can be
Other advantages of optics include low manufacturing costs, performed
immunity to electromagnetic interference, a tolerance for low- simultaneously.
loss transmissions, freedom from short electrical circuits and
the capability to supply large bandwidth and propagate signals
within the same or adjacent fibers without interference. One
oversimplified example may help to appreciate the difference
between optical and electronic parallelism. Consider an imaging
system with 1000  1000 independent points per mm2 in the
object plane which are connected optically by a lens to a corre-
sponding number of points per mm2 in the image plane; the lens
effectively performs an FFT of the image plane in real time.
For this to be accomplished electrically, a million operations are
required.

Parallelism, when associated with fast switching speeds, would

result in staggering computational speeds. Assume, for
example, there are only 100 million gates on a chip, much less
than what was mentioned earlier (optical integration is still in its
infancy compared to electronics). Further, conservatively
assume that

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before outputting the results.

But building an
optical computer will
not be easy. A major
challenge is finding
materials that can be
mass produced yet
consume little power;
for this reason, optical
computers may not
hit the consumer
market for 10 to 15
years.

In the near term, at

least, optical
computers will most
likely be hybrid
optical/electronic
systems that use
electronic circuits to
preprocess input data
for computation and
to post-process
output
data for
error correction

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each gate operates with years. Another of the typical problems optical computers have
a switching time of only faced is that the digital optical devices have practical limits of
1 nanosecond (organic eight to eleven bits of accuracy in basic operations due to, e.g.,
optical switches can intensity fluctuations. Recent research has shown ways around
switch at sub- this difficulty. Thus, for example, digital partitioning
picosecond rates algorithms, that can break matrix-vector products into lower-
compared to maximum accuracy sub-products, work- ing in tandem with error-
picosecond switching correction codes, can substantially improve the accuracy of
times for elec- tronic optical computing operations. Never- theless, many problems in
switching). Such a developing appropriate materials and devices must be overcome
system could perform before digital optical computers will be in widespread
more than 1017 bit commercial use. In the near term, at least, optical computers
operations per second. will most likely be hybrid optical/electronic systems that use
Compare this to the electronic circuits to preprocess input data for computation and
gigabits (109) or terabits to post-process output data for error correc- tion before
(1012) per second rates outputting the results. The promise of all-optical computing
which electronics are remains highly attractive, however, and the goal of developing
either currently limited optical computers continues to be a worthy one. Nevertheless,
to, or hoping to achieve. many scientists feel that an all-optical computer will not be the
In other words, a computer of the future; instead optoelectronic computers will
computation that might rule where the advantages of both electronics and optics will be
require one hundred used. Optical computing can also be linked intrinsically to
thousand hours (more quantum computing. Each photon is a quantum
than 11 years) of a
conventional computer
time could require less
than one hour by an
optical one.

But building an optical

computer will not be
easy. A major challenge
is finding materials that
can be mass produced
yet consume little
power; for this reason,
optical computers may
not hit the consumer
market for 10 to 15

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of a wave function describing the whole function. It is now

possible to control atoms by trapping single photons in small, The major
superconducting cavities [5]. So photon quantum computing breakthroughs on
could become a future possibility. optical computing
have been
Some Key Optical Components for Computing centered on the
development of
The major breakthroughs on optical computing have been cen-
micro-optic
tered on the development of micro-optic devices for data input.
devices for data
Conventional lasers are known as ‘edge emitters’ because their
input.
laser light comes out from the edges. Also, their laser cavities
run horizontally along their length. A vertical cavity surface
emitting laser (VCSEL – pronounced ‘vixel’), however, gives
out laser light from its surface and has a laser cavity that is
vertical; hence the name. VCSEL is a semiconductor vertical
cavity surface emitting microlaser diode that emits light in a
cylindrical beam vertically from the surface of a fabricated
wafer, and offers significant advantages when compared to the
edge-emitting lasers currently used in the majority of fiber optic
communications devices. They emit at 850 nm and have rather
low thresholds (typically a few mA). They are very fast and can
give mW of coupled power into a 50 micron core fiber and are
extremely radiation hard. VCSELS can be tested at the wafer
VCSEL is a semi-
level (as opposed to edge emitting lasers which have to be cut
conductor vertical
and cleaved before they can be tested) and hence are relatively
cavity surface
cheap. In fact, VCSELs can be fabricated efficiently on a 3-
emitting microlaser
inch diameter wafer. A schematic of VCSEL is shown in
diode that emits light
Figure 1. The principles involved in the operation of a VCSEL
in a cylindrical beam
are very similar to those of regular lasers. As shown in Figure
vertically from the
1, there are two special semiconductor materials sandwiching
surface of a
an active layer where all the action takes place. But rather than
fabricated wafer, and
reflective ends, in a VCSEL there are several layers of partially
offers significant
reflective mirrors above and below the active layer. Layers of
advantages when
semiconductor with differing compositions create these mirrors,
compared to the
and each mirror reflects a narrow range of wavelengths back
edge-emitting lasers
into the cavity in order to cause light emission at just one
currently used in the
wavelength.
majority of fiber optic
Spatial light modulators (SLMs) play an important role in communications

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devices.

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electronic signal processing.

Figure 1. A schematic
of the VCSEL and its
possible
miniaturization into
wafer.

Smart pixels,
the union of optics
and electronics,
both expands the
capabilities of
electronic systems
and
enables optical
systems with
high levels of

RESONANCE | June 2003 65

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several technical areas where the as, acousto-optic modulators (AOMs), and pixelated electro-
control of light on a pixel-by- optical devices, such as liquid-crystal modulators (LCMs). Fig-
pixel basis is a key element, ure 2(b) shows a simple AOM operation in deflecting light
such as optical processing, for beam direction. Encompassed within these categories are
inputting information on light amplitude- only, phase-only, or amplitude-phase modulators.
beams, and displays. For display
purposes the desire is to have as Broadly speaking, an optical computer is a computer in which
many pixels as possible in as light is used somewhere. This can means fiber optical connec-
small and cheap a device as tions between electronic components, free space connections, or
possible. For such purposes one in which light functions as a mechanism for storage of data,
design- ing silicon chips for use logic or arithmetic. Instead of electrons in silicon integrated
as spatial light modulators has circuits, the digital optical computers will be based on photons.
been effective. The basic idea is Smart pixels, the union of optics and electronics, both expands
to have a set of memory cells the capabilities of electronic systems and enables optical sys-
laid out on a regular grid. These tems with high levels of electronic signal processing. Thus,
cells are electrically connected smart pixel systems add value to electronics through optical
to metal mirrors, such that the input/output and interconnection, and value is added to optical
voltage on the mirror depends on systems through electronic enhancements which include gain,
the value stored in the memory
cell. A layer of optically active
liquid crystal is sandwiched
between this array of mirrors
and a piece of glass with a
conductive coating. The voltage
between individual mirrors and
the front electrode affects the
optical activity of the liquid
crystal in that neighborhood.
Hence by being able to
individually program the
memory locations one can set up
a pattern of optical activity in the
liquid crystal layer. Figure 2(a)
shows a reflective 256x256 pixel
device based on SRAM technol-
ogy. Several technologies have
contributed to the development
of SLMs. These include micro-
electro-mechanical devices, such

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Cover Glass Figure 2. (a) A

Electrode Liquid Crystal
reflective 256x256
Space
pixel device based on
Layer
SRAM (Static Random
Space Access Memory)
Layer technol- ogy with
CMOS embedded CMOS
SiO2 Planaraised
Layer Circuitry (Complimentary
Mirrors (a)
Metal-Ox- ide
Semiconductor).
(b) Schematic
diagram of an
Acousto-Optic
Modula- tor (AOM)
deflection prin- ciple.

(b)

feedback control, and image processing and compression. Smart

pixel technology is a relatively new approach to integrating
electronic circuitry and optoelectronic devices in a common
framework. The purpose is to leverage the advantages of each
individual technology and provide improved performance for
specific applications. Here, the electronic circuitry provides
complex functionality and programmability while the optoelec-
tronic devices provide high-speed switching and compatibility
with existing optical media. Arrays of these smart pixels lever-
age the parallelism of optics for interconnections as well as
computation. A smart pixel device, a light emitting diode (LED)

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under the control of a field-effect transistor (FET), can now be

made entirely out of organic materials on the same substrate for
the first time. In general, the benefit of organic over conven-

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The early work tional semiconductor electronics is that they should (when
in optical signal mass-production techniques take over) lead to cheaper, lighter,
processing and circuitry that can be printed rather than etched. Scientists at
computing was Bell Labs [6] have made 300-micron-wide pixels using polymer
basically analog in FETs and LEDs made from a sandwich of organic materials,
na-ture. In the past one of which allows electrons to flow, another which acts as
two decades, highway for holes (the absence of electrons); light is produced
however, a great when electrons and holes meet. The pixels are quite potent, with
deal of effort has a brightness of about 2300 candela/m2, compared to a figure of
been expended in
100 for present flat-panel displays [6]. A Cambridge University
the development of
group has also made an all-organic device, not as bright as the
Bell Labs version, but easier to make on a large scale [7].
digital optical
processors. Uses of Optics in Computing

Currently, optics is used mostly to link portions of computers,

or more intrinsically in devices that have some optical applica-
tion or component. For example, much progress has been
achieved, and optical signal processors have been successfully
used, for applications such as synthetic aperture radars, optical
pattern recognition, optical image processing, fingerprint enhan-
cement, and optical spectrum analyzers. The early work in opti-
cal signal processing and computing was basically analog in na-
ture. In the past two decades, however, a great deal of effort has
been expended in the development of digital optical processors.

Much work remains before digital optical computers will be

widely available commercially, but the pace of research and
development has increased through the 1990s. During the last
decade, there has been continuing emphasis on the following
aspects of optical computing:

 Optical tunnel devices are under continuous development

varying from small caliber endoscopes to character recognition
systems with multiple type capability.

 Development of optical processors for asynchronous trans-

fer mode.

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 Development architectures for optical neural networks.

Photons are
 Development of high accuracy analog optical processors, uncharged and
ca- pable of processing large amounts of data in parallel. do not interact
with one another
Since photons are uncharged and do not interact with one an-
as readily as
other as readily as electrons, light beams may pass through one
electrons, light
another in full-duplex operation, for example without distorting
beams may pass
the information carried. In the case of electronics, loops usually
through one
generate noise voltage spikes whenever the electromagnetic
another in full-
fields through the loop changes. Further, high frequency or fast
duplex operation,
switching pulses will cause interference in neighboring wires.
for example
On the other hand, signals in adjacent optical fibers or in optical
without distorting
integrated channels do not affect one another nor do they pick
the information
up noise due to loops. Finally, optical materials possess superior
carried.
storage density and accessibility over magnetic materials.

The field of optical computing is progressing rapidly and shows

many dramatic opportunities for overcoming the limitations
described earlier for current electronic computers. The process
is already underway whereby optical devices have been
incorpo- rated into many computing systems. Laser diodes as
sources of coherent light have dropped rapidly in price due to
mass pro- duction. Also, optical CD-ROM discs are now very
common in home and office computers.

Current trends in optical computing emphasize communica-

tions, for example the use of free-space optical interconnects as
a potential solution to alleviate bottlenecks experienced in elec-
tronic architectures, including loss of communication efficiency
in multiprocessors and difficulty of scaling down the IC tech-
nology to sub-micron levels. Light beams can travel very close
to each other, and even intersect, without observable or measur-
able generation of unwanted signals. Therefore, dense arrays of
interconnects can be built using optical systems. In addition,
risk of noise is further reduced, as light is immune to electro-
magnetic interferences. Finally, as light travels fast and it has
extremely large spatial bandwidth and physical channel density,

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Free-space optical it appears to be an excellent media for information transport and

techniques are hence can be harnessed for data processing. This high band-
also used in width capability offers a great deal of architectural advantage
scalable crossbar and flexibility. Based on the technology now available, future
systems, which systems could have 1024 smart pixels per chip with each
allow arbitrary channel clocked at 200MHz (a chip I/O of 200Gbits per
interconnections second), giving aggregate data capacity in the parallel optical
between a set of highway of more that 200Tbits per second; this could be further
inputs and a set of increased to 1000Tbits. Free-space optical techniques are also
outputs. Optical used in scal- able crossbar systems, which allow arbitrary
sorting and optical interconnections between a set of inputs and a set of outputs.
crossbar inter- Optical sorting and optical crossbar inter-connects are used in
connects are used asynchronous trans- fer modes or packet routing and in shared
in asynchronous memory multiproces- sor systems.
transfer modes or
In optical computing two types of memory are discussed. One
packet routing
consists of arrays of one-bit-store elements and the other is
and in shared
mass storage, which is implemented by optical disks or by holo-
memory
graphic storage systems. This type of memory promises very
multiprocessor high capacity and storage density. The primary benefits offered
systems. by holographic optical data storage over current storage tech-
nologies include significantly higher storage capacities and faster
read-out rates. This research is expected to lead to compact,
high-capacity, rapid- and random-access, radiation-resistant,
low-power, and low-cost data storage devices necessary for fu-
ture intelligent spacecraft, as well as to massive-capacity and
fast-access terrestrial data archives. As multimedia applications
and services become more and more prevalent, entertainment
and data storage companies are looking at ways to increase the
amount of stored data and reduce the time it takes to get that
data out of storage. The SLMs and the linear array beam steerer
are used in optical data storage applications. These devices are
used to write data into the optical storage medium at high speed.
The analog nature of these devices means that data can be
stored at much higher density than data written by conventional
de- vices. Researchers around the world are evaluating a
number of inventive ways to store optical data while improving
the perfor-

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mance and capacity of existing optical disk technology. While

these approaches vary in materials and methods, they do share a For audio
common objective: expanded capacity through stacking layers recordings, a 150-
of optical material. For audio recordings, a 150-MB minidisk MB minidisk with
with a 2.5-in. diameter has been developed that uses special a 2.5-in. diameter
compression to shrink a standard CD’s 640-MB storage has been
capacity onto the smaller polymer substrate. It is rewritable and developed that
uses magnetic field modulation on optical material. The uses special
minidisk uses one of two methods to write information onto an compression to
optical disk. With the minidisk, a magnetic field placed behind shrink a standard
the optical disk is modulated while the intensity of the writing CD’s 640-MB
laser head is held constant. By switching the polarity of the storage capacity
magnetic field while the laser creates a state of flux in the onto the smaller
optical material, digital data can be recorded on a single layer. polymer substrate.
As with all optical storage media, a read laser retrieves the data. It is rewritable and
Along with minidisk developments, standard magneto-optical uses magnetic
CD technology has expanded the capacity of the 3.5-in. field modulation on
diameter disk from 640 MB to commercially available 1 GB optical material.
storage media. These conven- tional storage media modulate the
laser instead of the magnetic field during the writing process.
Fourth-generation 8 5.25 in. diameter disks that use the same
technology have reached ca- pacities of 4 GB per disk. These
disks are used mainly in ‘jukebox’ devices. Not to be confused
with the musical jukebox, these machines contain multiple disks
for storage and backup of large amounts of data that need to be
accessed quickly.

Beyond these existing systems are several laboratory systems

that use multiple layers of optical material on a single disk. The
one with the largest capacity, magnetic super-resolution (MSR),
uses two layers of optical material. The data is written onto the
bottom layer through a writing laser and magnetic field modu-
lation (MFM). When reading the disk in MSR mode, the data is
copied from the lower layer to the upper layer with greater
spacing between bits. In this way, data can be stored much
closer together (at distances smaller than the read beam
wavelength) on the bottom layer without losing data due to
averaging across bits. This method is close to commercial
production, offering

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ASMO records capacities of up to 20 GB on a 5.25 in. disk without the need for
data on both lands altering conventional read-laser technology. Advanced storage
and grooves and, by magnetic optics (ASMO) builds on MSR, but with one excep-
choosing groove tion. Standard optical disks, including those used in MSR, have
depths approximately grooves and lands just like a phonograph record. These grooves
1/6 the wavelength are used as guideposts for the writing and reading lasers. How-
of the reading laser ever, standard systems only record data in the grooves, not on
light, the system can the lands, wasting a certain amount of the optical material’s
eliminate the capacity. ASMO records data on both lands and grooves and,
crosstrack crosstalk by choosing groove depths approximately 1/6 the wavelength of
that would normally the reading laser light, the system can eliminate the crosstrack
be the result of crosstalk that would normally be the result of recording on both
recording on both grooves and lands. Even conventional CD recordings pick up
grooves and lands. data from neighboring tracks, but this information is filtered
out, reducing the signal-to-noise ratio. By closely controlling
the groove depth, ASMO eliminates this problem while maxi-
mizing the signal-to-noise ratio. MSR and ASMO technologies
are expected to produce removable optical disk drives with
capacities between 6 and 20 GB on a 12-cm optical disk, which
is the same size as a standard CD that holds 640 MB. Magnetic
amplifying magneto-optical systems (MAMMOS) use a stan-
dard polymer disk with two or three magnetic layers. In general
terms, MAMMOS is similar to MSR, except that when the data
is copied from the bottom to the upper layer, it is expanded in
size, amplifying the signal. According to Archie Smith of
Storagetek’s Advanced Technology Office (Louisville, CO),
MAMMOS represents a two-fold increase in storage capacity
over ASMO.

Technology developed by Call/Recall Inc. (San Diego, CA)

could help bridge the gap between optical disk drives and
holographic memories. Called 2-photon optical storage technol-
ogy (which got its start with the assistance of the Air Force
research laboratories and DARPA), the Call/Recall systems un-
der development use a single beam to write the data in either
optical disks with up to 120 layers, or into 100-layer cubes of
active-molecule-doped MMA polymer. In operation, a mask

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representing data is illuminated by a mode-locked Nd:YAG

laser emitting at 1064 nm with pulse durations of 35 ps. The
focal point of the beam intersects a second beam formed by the
second harmonic of the same beam at 532 nm. The second beam
fixes the data spatially and temporally. A third beam from a
HeNe laser emitting at 543 nm reads the data by causing the
material to fluoresce. The fluorescence is read by a charge-
coupled device (CCD) chip and converted through
proprietary algorithms back into data. Newer versions of the
system use a Ti:Sapphire laser with 200-fs pulses.
Call/Recall’s Fredrick McCormick said the newer and older
approaches offer different strengths. The YAG system can
deliver higher-power pulses capable of storing megabits of
data with a single pulse, but at much lower repetition rates
than the Ti:Sapphire laser with its lower-power pulses. Thus,
it is a trade-off. Call/Recall has demonstrated the system
using portable apparatus comprised of a simple stepper-motor-
driven stage and 200-microwatt HeNe laser in conjunction with
a low-cost video camera. The company estimates that an
optimized system could produce static bit error rates (BER) of
less than 9  10–13. McCormick believes that a final prototype
operating at standard CD rotation rates would offer BERs that
match or slightly exceed conventional optical disk technology.
Researchers such as Demetri Psaltis and asso- ciates at the
California Institute of Technology are also using active-
molecule-doped polymers to store optical data holographi- cally.
Their system uses a thin polymer layer of PMMA doped
with phenanthrenequinone (PQ). When illuminated with two
coherent beams, the subsequent interference pattern causes the
PQ molecules to bond to the PMMA host matrix to a greater
extent in brighter areas and to a lesser extent in areas where the
intensity drops due to destructive interference. As a result, a pair
of partially offsetting index gratings is formed in the PMMA
matrix. After writing the hologram into the polymer
material, the substrate is baked, which causes the remaining
unbonded PQ molecules to diffuse throughout the polymer,
removing the offsetting grating and leaving the hologram. A
uniform illumi- nation is the final step, bonding the diffuse

74 RESONANCE | June 2003

 GENERAL | ARTICLE

PQ throughout the

RESONANCE | June 2003 75

 GENERAL | ARTICLE

Associative matrix and fixing the hologram in the polymer material.

or content-based Storagetek’s Archie Smith estimates that devices based on this
data access method could hold between 100 and 200 GB of data on a 5.25-
enables in diameter polymer disk.
the search of
More conventional approaches to holographic storage use iron-
the entire memory
doped lithium niobate crystals to store pages of data. Unlike
space in parallel
standard magneto-optical storage devices, however, the systems
for the presence of
developed by Pericles Mitkas at Colorado State University use
a keyword
the associative search capabilities of holographic memories
or search
(Fig- ure 3). Associative or content-based data access enables
argument.
the search of the entire memory space in parallel for the
presence of a keyword or search argument. Conventional systems
use memory addresses to track data and retrieve the data at that
location when requested. Several applications can benefit from
this mode of operation including management of large
multimedia databases, video indexing, image recognition, and
data mining. Different types of data such as formatted and
unformatted text, gray scale and binary images, video frames,
alphanumeric data tables, and time signals can be interleaved in
the same medium and we can search the memory with either
data type. The system uses a data and a reference beam to
create a hologram on one

Figure 3. Holographic me-mory cubes use a spatial

light modulator to simultaneously search the entire
memory for a searchable object – be it text, image, or
something else. This associative memory search
process promises significant benefits for database
sear- ching and other applications.

76 RESONANCE | June 2003

 GENERAL | ARTICLE

plane inside the lithium niobate. By changing the angle of the

reference beam, more data can be written into the cube just like
pages in a book. The current systems have stored up to 1000
pages per spatial location in either VGA or VGA resolutions.
To search the data, a binary or analog pattern that represents the
search argument is loaded into a spatial light modulator and
modulates a laser beam. The light diffracted by the holographic
cube on a CCD generates a signal that indicates the pages that
match the sought data. Recent results have shown the system
can find the correct data 75 percent of the time when using
patterns as small as 1 to 5 percent of the total page. That level
goes up to 95 to 100 percent by increasing the amount of data
included in the search argument.

Suggested Reading

[1] See for example: Chemical and Engineering News, “Photonic

Crystals Assembled on Chip”, 79(47), 31 (2001).
[2] P. Boffi, D. Piccinin, M.C. Ubaldi, (Eds.), Infrared Holography for
OpticalCommunications—Techniques,Materials and Devices, Springer
— Topics in Applied Physics: Vol 86, July 2002.
[3] Alain Goulet, Makoto Naruse, and Masatoshi Ishikawa, “Simple
integration technique to realize parallel optical interconnects: imple-
mentation of a pluggable two-dimensional optical data link”, Applied
Optics 41, 5538 (2002)
[4] Tushar Mahapatra, Sanjay Mishra, Oracle Parallel Processing, O’Reilly
& Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, California, USA, 2000.
[5] S. J. van Enk, J. McKeever, H. J. Kimble, and J. Ye, “Cooling of a single
atom in an optical trap inside a resonator,” Phys. Rev. A 64, 013407
(2001).
[6] A. Dodabalapur, Z. Bao, A. Makhija, J. G. Laquindanum, V. R. Raju, Y.
Feng, H. E. Katz, and J. Rogers, “Organic smart pixels”, Appl. Phys.
Lett. 73, 142 (1998).
[7] Henning Sirringhaus, Nir Tessler, and Richard H. Friend, “Integrated
Optoelectronic Devices Based on Conjugated Polymers”, Science 280, Address for Correspondence
1741 (1988). Debabrata Goswami
Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research
Homi Bhabha Road
Colaba, Mumbai 400005
Email: [email protected]
http://www.tifr.res.in/~debu

RESONANCE | June 2003 71

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