Optical Switching and Optical Logic in a Thermally Expanding Si Etalon.

摘要

Optical switching in a thermally expanding Si etalon has been demonstrated. In this experiment a pulsed CO2 laser beam is used to heat a Si etalon and shift the interference fringe of a 1.5 micro probe beam. It is shown that the switching time can be greatly reduced from ms to microsec by choosing a probe beam of shorter wavelength in an external switching configuration. By aligning one etalon at switch-on and another at switch-off, we demonstrate a write and erase logic system.