<title>Optical Processing Of Gigahertz Bandwidth Signals</title>

Abstract

An optical channel is two-dimensional and, with thousands of elements in each spatial dimension, can provide a time-bandwidth product in the millions. The major limitation to the practical utilization of this capability, for real-time optical computing at high data rates, had been the input transducer. The development of the General Electric Coherent Light Valve (CLV) provided the required video input transducer, but the system bandwidth was restricted to the 20 MHz region. Continuing development has extended the CLV system signal bandwidth; recent experiments have shown a useful frequency range in excess of 100 MHz with a BT of 105. This paper describes the considerations involved in extending the capability of a CLV optical processor to permit processing gigahertz bandwidth signals.