Rapidly Reconfigurable All-Optical Universal Logic Gates

摘要

We present designs and simulations for a highly cascadable, rapidly reconfigurable, all-optical, universal logic gate. We will discuss the gate's expected performance, e.g. speed, fanout, and contrast ratio, as a function of the device layout and biasing conditions. The gate is a three terminal on-chip device that consists of: (1) the input optical port, (2) the gate selection port, and (3) the output optical port. The device can be built monolithically using a standard multiple quantum well graded index separate confinement heterostructure laser configuration. The gate can be rapidly and repeatedly reprogrammed to perform any of the basic digital logic operations by using an appropriate analog electrical or optical signal at the gate selection port. Specifically, the same gate can be selected to execute one of the 2 basic unary operations (NOT or COPY), or one of the 6 binary operations (OR, XOR, AND, NOR, XNOR, or NAND), or one of the many logic operations involving more than two inputs. The speed of the gate for logic operations as well as for reprogramming the function of the gate is primarily limited to the small signal modulation speed of a laser, which can be on the order of tens of GHz. The reprogrammable nature of the universal gate offers maximum flexibility and interchangeability for the end user since the entire application of a photonic integrated circuit built from cascaded universal logic gates can be changed simply by adjusting the gate selection port signals.