Volume Photorefractive Optical Interconnect Elements for C3I Applications

This proposal addresses a design and fabrication investigation of a volume photorefractive optical memory system. The technology supports integration into two dimensional (2D) arrays of reconfigurable optical interconnect pixels for high performance digital processing applications such as high speed telecommunications and computing. The proposed volume memory array will be integrated into the high perfromance optical computing (HPOC) module program currently under development by Rome Labortory, ARPA, ONR, and BMDO. These modules use planar diffractive optical interconnect elements (DOIEs) where fixed programs are stored. The insertion of volume photorefractive optical interconnect element (V-POIE) technology will provide wavelenght selective interconnect reconfigurability at system clock speeds (or faster). Target switching speeds of 1 ns may be achieved by electrical tuning of multisection distributed Bragg reflection (DBF) edge or a vartical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) diode. We refer to this photonic random optical memory access system as "PROMAC". The primary goal of this Phase I SBIR progam is to investigate, define and design a photorefractive volume crystal array and the methodology for read/write and fix. Task 1 addresses the issues of algorithms, architecture and chromatic dispersion requirements. Hardware issures include V-POIE orientation, transmission, reflection geometries, refraction efficiencies, spectral resolution, SNR, contrast ratios, etc. Task 2 addresses material technology, fixing techniques and procedures, recording strategies, and performance projections.