Partitioned Optoelectronic Output Interface for Page-oriented Parallel Optical Memory

Use of the potential storage capacity of page-oriented 3-D optical memory technology is currently impeded by: 1) lack of development of the interfaces required to transform the data between the optical memory format and that compatible with the rest of the system and users, and 2) infancy of the technology necessary to transfer that data between subsystem. This proposal addresses the problem of providing the output interface to enable the new page output from the optical memory to be formatted such that it can be transported between processors, users and storage medium by examination of the partition between subsystems that peform the reformatting, coding and error correction. Free-space optics is ideally suited to the formatting and transfer of optical memory output due to the inherent free-space, parallel output of the optical memory subsystems. In Phase I we will develop smart pixel technolgoy, used to transform the data to a usable format, combined with free-space optics, used to provide the interconnections between subsystems, bringing together state-of-the-art optoelectronics and optics with classical optics, and tolerant and stable optomechanical packaging. We will develop the subsystem partitions and designs to enable implementation of an optical memoryh output interface in Phase II.