Apparatus for simultaneous spatial modulation of incoherent/coherent angulary multiplexed optical beams

摘要

Novel apparatus for simultaneous spatial modulation of a set of angularly multiplexed individually coherent but mutually incoherent optical beams is disclosed, comprising means for generating a set of two or more individually coherent beams that have at least one optical wavelength in common, pairwise, and are assured to be mutually incoherent, and means for directing the set of individually coherent but mutually incoherent beams to a spatial modulation means, such that a spatially overlapping group of individually coherent but mutually incoherent beams overlap spatially in at least one region of the spatial modulation means and are angularly multiplexed within the region. Such simultaneous spatial modulation is a key feature, for example, in highly multiplexed photonic interconnection, memory, and display systems with maximum optical throughput efficiency and minimum crosstalk, based on parallel incoherent/coherent double angularly multiplexed holographic recording and readout principles. Simultaneous spatial modulation is also of importance for the provision for arbitrarily weighted and independent interconnections in the development of densely interconnected photonic implementations of neural networks, photonic interconnection networks for telecommunications switching and digital computing applications, optical information processors, optical memories, and optical displays. Variants of the apparatus are provided that allow for the incorporation of optically isolated semiconductor laser diode arrays, vertical cavity surface emitting laser arrays that are partially mutually incoherent and partially wavelength division multiplexed, the combination of laser diode and phase modulator arrays to provide for controllable mutual incoherence, both pixelated and non-pixelated spatial light modulators, and both planar and volume holographic or diffractive optical elements employed as spatial light modulation means.