SURFACE-EMITTING LASER-BASED SMART PIXELS FOR 2-DIMENSIONAL OPTICAL LOGIC AND RECONFIGURABLE OPTICAL INTERCONNECTIONS

A monolithic smart pixel technology based on the integration of two-dimensional arrays of cascadable optical switches, optical logic gates, and optical switching nodes consisting of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers and heterojunction phototransistors or photothyristors is described. Different combinations of these components are shown to perform optical switching, logic, routing, memory, and regeneration. Latching, nonlatching, and bistable switches with high optical gain and contrast are demonstrated, along with all the simple single-stage Boolean optical logic functions. We also describe a novel 2 x 2 optical bypass-exchange node, and a reconfigurable, multistage, two-dimensional optical switching network architecture.