GENERAL J ARTICLE

Optical Computing
2. Research Trends

Debabrata Goswami

Researchers are using new c o n d u c t i n g polymers to m a k e

transistor-like switches that are smaller and t h o u s a n d t i m e s
faster than t h e silicon transistors. Electricity-conducting
organic m o l e c u l e s that are m u c h t h i n n e r t h a n s e m i c o n d u c -
tor wires, are being teased into self-assembling. These
Debabrata Goswami is at the
advances promise super-tiny all-optical chips. In fact,
Tata Institute of Fundamen-
tal Research, Mumbai,
progress in optical storage devices can n o w shrink an entire
where he explores the Library's book collection down to sugar-cube size. Optical
applications of ultrafast computers could be leaving silicon n u m b e r crunchers chok-
shaped pulses to coherent
ing in the dust by decade's end.
control, high-speed
communication and
Introduction
computing. He is also
associated as a VisRing
In recent years, a number of devices that can ultimately lead us
Faculty at IIT, Kanpur,
where he will be teaching a to real optical computers have already been manufactured. These
n e w course on Quantum include optical logic gates, optical switches, optical intercon-
Computing. He had earlier nections, and optical memory. High-density physical integra-
worked on developing the
tion optical switching devices have been achieved. Optical de-
first acousto-optic modu-
lated ultrafast pulse shaper vices can have switching speeds of the order of 10-~s seconds
as a part of his doctoral work with power requirements as low as 10-6 watts. Two types of
at Princeton. optical processors have been under active development, namely
numeric and nonnumeric. Numeric processors include logic
multiplication unit, optical arithmetic unit and optical correla-
Part 1. Optical components and tar. Non-numeric processors for optical text processing and
storage systems, Resonance, optical knowledge based processing have shown good results.
Vol.8, No.6, pp.56-71, 2003.
Among the most crucial performance-limiting factors of today's
very large-scale integrated circuits are the limited pin number
and the low bandwidth of interconnections, rather than the
Keywords chip's processing power. (For example, the Japanese Earth Simu-
Optical switching devices, or-
ganic polymer optical devices,
lator, a computer system developed by NEC, uses a processor IC
optical computer trends. with 5,000 pins.) Much more performance will be achieved if

RESONANCE J July 2003

 GENERAL J ARTICLE

chip-to-chip data transfer can be realized by fast links leaving Optical

the circuit directly out from the chip's surface instead of via the interconnections
chip's edge. Arrays of optical modulators or vertical surface for VLSI systems
emitting lasers, that can be flip-chip bonded onto complemen- also offer massive
tary metal oxide semiconductor circuits, promise to offer a parallelism and
solution for the bottleneck in chip-to-chip communications. three-dimensional
interconnection
Optical interconnections for VLSI systems also offer massive
capabilities.
parallelism and three-dimensional interconnection capabilities.
During the last decade, significant advances have been achieved
in the field of optoelectronics VLSI (OE-VLSI) and microelec-
tronics. Arrays of OE-VLSI circuits linked together by 3-D opti-
cal interconnections based on free space optics offer a kind of
natural pipeline. It is possible now to design circuitry within the
OE-VLSI chip as an array processing structure. This will help to
combine the two most popular parallel processing techniques:
pipelining and array processing. This is of great interest for the
design of innovative 3-D arithmetic units that can serve as the
core for future 3-D processors. It is envisaged that such architec-
tures offer potential for a significant increase of computing per-
formance, which would not be possible by using only all-elec-
tronic technology. It may also be considered as a road map for a
future massively parallel optoelectronic supercomputer system.

An interesting suggestion is that such systems can consist of

multiple clusters, which can be directly mounted with a silicon
spacer on a glass substrate. Inside the glass substrate, the optical
interconnections are to run along zigzag paths. Additionally,
diffractive optical elements are etched in a glass substrate's
surface to realize the optical interconnections, which link the
OE-VLSI circuit.

Optical computing technology is, in general, developing in two

directions. One approach is to build computers that have the
same architecture as present day computers but using optics.
Another approach is to generate a completely new kind of
computer, which can perform all functional operations in an
optical mode. The research carried out to date suggests that all

RESONANCE J July 2003

 GENERAL J ARTICLE

The future lies in the optical computers are far from reality and a hybrid system could
development of be tested for typical mathematical/functional operations. Per-
massively parallel formance benchmark reports in this direction could push opto-
photonic switches electronic-computing systems out of laboratories and encourage
relying on optically more research towards cost effective user friendliness.
processed signal
Another interesting area is holo-computing. Consider two ap-
routing, monolithic
parently unrelated facts. First, the trend in all areas of high-end
integration of
computing is towards greater parallelism. Second, because of its
optoelectronic
quantum nature, a photon has no path or position until it is
elements, and an
detected. These facts get connected to the domain of hologra-
architecture
phy. Holographic techniques will be central to photonic com-
optimized to exploit
puting, provided substantial research continues towards mate-
the speed and
rial properties. Using the properties of holography and creating
parallelism of optical
holograms with computers provide many computer-oriented
interconnections.
applications. These include computer memories, pattern recog-
nition, data encryption, optical contouring, CAD, medical im-
aging, etc. Optical memories are expected to be an integral part
of high performance computing. Where research will take opti-
cal memories, it remains to be seen.

One of the emerging trends in the area of optical computing is

the development of photonic devices. Optical interconnects
promise to eliminate I/O bottlenecks in VHSIC chips, boards,
and back-panes, increasing the processor power of high speed
computing systems. The future lies in the development of mas-
sively parallel photonic switches relying on optically processed
signal routing, monolithic integration of optoelectronic ele-
ments, and an architecture optimized to exploit the speed and
parallelism of optical interconnections. Such developments will
pave way for high speed routing in broadband networks as well
as optically interconnected multiprocessors in future.

We are in an era of daily explosions in the development of optics

and optical components for computing and other applications.
Photonics is booming in industry and universities worldwide.
Data traffic is growing worldwide at a rate of 100% per year,
while in the US; data traffic is expected to increase 300%

10 RESONANCE J July 2003

 GENERAL I ARTICLE

annually. The requirement for high data rate transfer equip- There is an
ment is also expected to continue increasing. Electronic switch- absence of known
ing limits network speeds to about 50 Gigabits per second. efficient nonlinear
Terabit speeds are needed to accommodate the growth rate of optical (NLO)
the Internet and the increasing demand for bandwidth-inten- materials that can
sive data streams. respond at low
power levels. Most
S o m e Current Research
all-optical
High performance computing (HPC) has gained momentum in components
recent years, with efforts to optimize all the resources of elec- require a high level
tronic computing and researcher brainpower in order to in- of laser power to
crease computing throughput. Optical computing is a topic of function as
current support in many places, with private companies as well required.
as governments in several countries encouraging such research
work. For example, much of the optical computing research in
Japan is performed under the auspices of the Real World Com-
puting - Real World Intelligence/Parallel and Distributed
Computing project. That research focuses on next generation
computing systems and development of support technologies.

Most components that are currently very much in demand are

electro-optical (EO). Such hybrid components are limited by
the speed of their electronic parts. All-optical components will
have the advantage of speed over EO components. Unfortu-
nately, there is an absence of known efficient nonlinear optical
(NLO) materials that can respond at low power levels. Most all-
optical components require a high level of laser power to func-
tion as required.

A group of researchers from the University of Southern Califor-

nia, jointly with a team from the University of California, Los
Angeles, have developed an organic polymer with switching
frequency of 60 GHz. This is three times faster than the current
industry standard, lithium niobate crystal-based devices. The
California teams have been working to incorporate their mate-
rial into a working prototype. Development of such a device
could revolutionize the information superhighway and speed
data processing for optical computing.

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 GENERAL J ARTICLE

Electronic Another group at Brown University and the IBM Almaden

communication Research Center (San Jose, CA) has used ultrafast laser pulses to
along wires requires build ultrafast data-storage devices. This group was able to
charging of a achieve ultrafast switching down to lOOps. Their results are
capacitor that almost ten times faster than currently available 'speed limits'.
depends on length. Optoelectronic technologies for optical computers and commu-
In contrast, optical nication hold promise for transmitting data as short as the space
signals in optical between computer chips.
fibers, optical
In Japan, NEC has developed a method for interconnecting
integrated circuits,
circuit boards optically using Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting
and free space do
Laser arrays (VCSEL). Researchers at Osaka City University
not have to charge a
reported a method for automatic alignment of a set of optical
capacitor and are
beams in space with a set of optical fibers.
therefore faster.
Other researchers at NTT have designed an optical backplane
with free-space optical interconnects using tunable beam deflec-
tors and a mirror. The project achieved 1000 interconnections
per printed-circuit board; with throughput ranging from 1 to i0
Tb/s. Optics has a higher bandwidth capacity than electronics,
which enables more information to be carried and data to be
processed. This arises because electronic communication along
wires requires charging of a capacitor that depends on length. In
contrast, optical signals in optical fibers, optical integrated
circuits, and free space do not have to charge a capacitor and are
therefore faster.

T h e Role of N L O in O p t i c a l C o m p u t i n g : t h e N e e d
for N e w M a t e r i a l s

The field of optical computing is considered to be the most

multidisciplinary field and requires for its success collaborative
efforts of many disciplines, ranging from device and optical
engineers to computer architects, chemists, material scientists,
and optical physicists. On the materials side, the role of nonlin-
ear materials in optical computing has become extremely sig-
nificant. Nonlinear materials are those, which interact with
light and modulate its properties.

12 RESONANCE [ July 2003

 GENERAL t ARTICLE

For example, such materials can change the color of light from Organic materials
being unseen in the infrared region of the color spectrum to a have many features
green color where it is easily seen in the visible region of the that make them
spectrum. Several of the optical computer components require desirable for use in
efficient nonlinear materials for their operation. What in fact optical devices, such
restrains the widespread use of all optical devices is the ineffi- as high
ciency of currently available nonlinear optical materials, which nonlinearities,
require large amounts of energy for responding or switching. In flexibility of
spite of new developments in materials, presented in the litera- molecular design,
ture daily, a great deal of research by chemists and material and damage
scientists is still required to enable better and more efficient resistance to optical
optical materials. Organic materials have many features that radiation; however,
make them desirable for use in optical devices, such as high processing
nonlinearities, flexibility of molecular design, and damage resis- difficulties for
tance to optical radiation; however, processing difficulties for crystals and thin
crystals and thin films has hindered their use in devices. Still, films has hindered
some organic materials belonging to the classes of phthalocya 7 their use in devices.
nines and polydiacetylenes are promising for optical thin films
and waveguides. Phthalocyanines are large ring-structured por-
phyrins for which large and ultrafast nonlinearities have been
observed. These compounds exhibit strong electronic transi-
tions in the visible region and have high chemical and thermal
stability up to 400~ The third order susceptibility of phthalo-
cyanine, which is a measure of its nonlinear efficiency, has been
found to be more than a million times larger than that of the
standard material, carbon disulfide. This class of materials has
good potential for commercial device applications, and has been
used as a photosensitive organic material, and for photovoltaic,
photoconductive and photo-electrochemical applications.

Polydiacetylenes are zigzag polymers having conjugated (alter-

nating) mobile ~-electrons for which the largest reported
nonresonant (purely electronic) susceptibility for switching has
been reported. Consequently, polydiacetylenes are among the
most widely investigated class of polymers for nonlinear optical
applications. Their subpicosecond time response to laser signals
makes them candidates for high-speed optoelectronics and in-

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 GENERAL I ARTICLE

An optical logic formation processing. Some of these materials can be intrinsi-

gate is a switch cally bi-stable when deposited in thin-film layers. Optical bi-
that controls one stable devices and logic gates are the equivalent of electronic
light beam by transistors. T h e y switch light ON and OFF. They are also useful
another; it is 'ON' as optical cells for information storage.
when the device
A d v a n c e s in P h o t o n i c S w i t c h e s
transmits light and
it is 'OFF' when it Logic gates are the building blocks of any digital system. An
blocks the light. optical logic gate is a switch that controls one light beam by
another; it is 'ON' when the device transmits light and it is
'OFF' when it blocks the light. Abdeldayem and others [1] of
the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center demonstrated two fast
all-optical switches using p h t h a l o c y a n i n e thin films and
polydiacetylene fiber in their laboratory. The phthalocyanine
switch is in the nanosecond regime and functions as an all-
optical AND logic gate, while the polydiacetylene one is in the
picosecond regime and exhibits a partial all-optical NAND logic
gate.

To demonstrate the AND gate in the phthalocyanine film,

Abdeldayem and others [1] waveguided two focused collinear
laser beams through a thin film ( - 1 mm) of metal-free phthalo-
cyanine film. T h e y used the nanosecond green pulsed Nd:YAG
laser with a red continuous wave (cw) He-Ne beam. At the
output a narrow band filter was set to block the green beam and
allow only the He-Ne beam. When the transmitted beam was
detected on an oscilloscope from fast photo-detector, it was
found that the transmitted He-Ne cw beam was pulsating with a
nanosecond duration and in synchronous with the input Nd:YAG
nanosecond pulse. This demonstrated the characteristic table of
an AND logic gate. A schematic of the overall experiment is
shown in Figure 1.

A picosecond switch was demonstrated by the same group [1]

with a setup quite similar to the one shown in Figure 1, except
that the phthalocyanine film was replaced by a hollow fiber
(refractive index of 1.7) filled with a polydiacetylene (refractive

14 RESONANCE I July 2003

 GENERAL I ARTICLE

Figure 1. A schematic of
the nanosecond all-optical
AND logic gate setup.

index of 1.2). A mode locked Nd:YAG green picosecond laser

pulse was sent collinearly with a red cw He-Ne laser (632.8 nm)
onto one end of the fiber. At the other end of the fiber a lens was
focusing the output onto the narrow slit of a monochrometer
with its grating set for the red He-Ne laser. It was found that
with the He-Ne beam O F F , the Nd:YAG pulse induced a week
fluorescent picosecond signal (40 ps) at 632.8nm that was ob-
served as a picosecond pulse on the oscilloscope. The signal
disappeared each time the He-Ne beam was turned on. These
results exhibited a picosecond respond in the system and dem-
onstrated three of the four characteristics of a N A N D logic gate
as shown in Figure 2.

R e s e a r c h in I n d i a

In India, technological changes have been taking place very fast.

The primary objective has been to support national socio-eco-
nomic growth and hence funds were provided accordingly. The
areas of space exploration, earth resource utilization, communi-
cations, transport, image processing, biotechnology, etc. have
led to extensive computer technologies including hardware,

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 GENERAL [ ARTICLE

Figure 2. A schematic of
the picosecond all-optical
NAND logic gate set-up.

system and applications software developments, as well as rein-

forcing user confidence to utilize such resources. Much of this
research, and especially in applications, is highly multidisci-
plinary and it was soon realized that H P C capability is a prereq-
uisite and, thus initiatives to explore other aspects began. Top-
ics such as quantum computing, optical computing and neural/
D N A computing are being considered. There was even one
effort on combining two or more new computing forms along
with the conventional ones. Nevertheless, Indian progress in
optical computing has been. only at a few selected premier
research institutes and is yet to make its mark.

India's Department of Science and Technology (DST) has taken

several innovative initiatives to support new technologies. Aimed
at the year 2020 AD (and the vision for the new millennium), the
Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council
(TIFAC) has started the Center of Relevance & Excellence
(CORE), which is, at the moment, concentrating on VLSI,
information security and networking. T I F A C is an autonomous

16 RESONANCE I July 2003

 GENERAL J ARTICLE

organization of the Government of India's DST. Further, last The researchers in

year, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) India realize the
began its New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Ini- importance of optical
tiative (NMITLI) in an effort to attain global leadership in a few computing and are in
selected niche areas. tune with
government support
The Ministry of Information Technology (MIT) has also initi-
to initiate a few
ated a Photonics Development Program which has a long term
critical activities in
objective of developing core technologies and applications re-
this direction. Some
lated to next generation electronics, computers and communica-
of them plan to join
tions systems. Under this program, some funded projects are
hands for
continuing in fiber optic high speed network systems, opto-
collaborative efforts.
electronics technology, photonic switching multiplexing and
networking, and microwave photonics. There is also a proposal
for the Ministry to establish a Center for Photonics. The
researchers in India realize the importance of optical computing
and are in tune with government support to initiate a few critical
activities in this direction. Some of them plan to join hands for
collaborative efforts. The institutes/organizations that are in-
volved include IITs at Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai; Indian
Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore; Tata Institute of Funda-
mental Research (TIFR), Mumbai; Center for Advanced Tech-
nology (CAT), Indore; Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC),
Mumbai; Defense Research and Development Organization
(DRDO), New Delhi; CSIR Laboratories, and Center for Artifi-
cial Intelligence Research (CAIR), Bangalore. Some other uni-
versities will also join this initiative. Typical research issues to
be addressed include developing new laser diodes, photon detec-
tors, tunable wavelength sources, and nonlinear material studies
for faster switches. Research efforts on novel nanoparticle thin
film or layer studies for display devices are also in progress.

The sending of many different wavelengths down the same

optical fiber is known as Wavelength Division Multiplexing
(WDM). Using this technology, modern networks in which
individual lasers can transmit at 10 Gigabits per second can have
several different lasers each giving out 10 Gbit/s through the

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 GENERAL ] ARTICLE

Figure3. (a) Schematic dia- same fiber at the same time. Systems being deployed at present
gram of wavelength divi- will usually have no more than maybe 32 wavelengths, but
sion multiplexing, showing technology advancements will continue to make a higher num-
two wavelengths being mul-
ber of wavelengths possible. The act of combining several
tiplexed into the optical fi-
different wavelengths on the same fiber is known as multiplex-
ber.
(b) A typical WDM system ing. At the receiving end, these wavelengths need to be sepa-
with a demultiplexerbefore rated again, which is known, logically enough, as demultiplexing.
the detectors to read infor- Each wavelength will then need its own light detector to convert
mation sent through the fi- it back into useful information (Figure 3). At the Indian Insti-
ber. tute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, efforts are in progress to
generate a white-light source from a diode-laser based fiber
amplifier system in order to provide wide bandwidth WDM
communication channels. The Ministry of Information Tech-
nology is funding this research.

The Ministry of Information Technology has also provided

funding to TIFR for conducting Quantum Computing utilizing
optical approaches [2]. In this research initiative, rapid pro-
grammable ultrafast optical pulse shaping is being demonstrated
at 1550 nm wavelength, the important wavelength range for
applications to optical communications using commercial ul-
trashort laser pulses in" picosecond (10 -~z s) and femtosecond
(10-15 s) range. In particular to the optical information channel,
what has been achieved with ultrafast optical pulse shaping can
be viewed as an optical spectral encoder with rapid update rate.
One of the important and promising applications of this spectral
encoder is for high-speed optical communication. Shaping
ultrafast pulses is nontrivial since there are no electronic devices
that can work on these timescales. If the optical pulse that one
wishes to shape has a temporal duration of fs or ps, then a
modulator that works on this timescale is required.

18 RESONANCE J July 2003

 GENERAL I ARTICLE

The idea of shaping a pulse by sending it through a modulator,

such as a Mach-Zehnder, is referred to as direct pulse shaping.
Current modulators can operate at 60GHz, which is much slower
than necessary to shape a femtosecond pulse. Therefore, the
technique of indirect pulse shaping, which includes Liquid
Crystal Modulators (LCM pulse shaping), Acousto-Optic Modu-
lator (AOM pulse shaping), and time-stretched pulse shaping, is
used. The choice of which pulse-shaping apparatus to use may
depend on the particular application; each technique has differ-
ent advantages [3].

In the particular technique followed at TIFR, a grating spreads

the pulse, so that each different spectral component maps onto a
different spatial position. The collimating lenses and grating
pair are set up in a 4F configuration (F being the focal length of
the collimating lenses), and in the center of the 4F system, an
element is placed that will modulate the spectrum (see Figure4).
The essential concepts of Fourier transformation of the incident
beam are utilized. In the case that AOM is the encoding element,
there is a huge difference between sound and light speeds in the

Figure 4. A schematic of
the acousto-optic modu-
lated pulse shaping tech-
nique.

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 GENERAL J ARTICLE

Typical DWDM is a AOM crystal. Since the ratio between these two is about 1 to 1
fiber-optic million, one can use a MHz electrical signal to achieve THz
transmission programmable modulation of an optical signal and still keep a
technique that reasonable update speed. In practice, high resolution spectral
employs light encoding is, by definition, a variation of Dense Wavelength
wavelengths to Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and can be used to signifi-
transmit data parallel- cantly improve the bandwidth efficiency.
by-bit or serial-by-
Typical D W D M is a fiber-optic transmission technique that
character.
employs light wavelengths to transmit data paraUel-by-bit or
serial-by-character. This technology puts data from different
sources together on an optical fiber, with each signal carried at
the same time on its own separate light wavelength. Each
channel carries a time division multiplexed (TDM) signal. In a
system with each channel carrying 2.5 Gbps (billion bits per
second), up to 200 billion bits can be delivered a second by the
optical fiber. Since each channel is demultiplexed at the end of
the transmission back into the original source, different data
formats being transmitted at different data rates can be trans-
mitted together. The idea behind the variation being attempted
at TIFR can be illustrated in the following way: Start with a
100 fs Full-Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) optical pulse and
encode, for example, 16 amplitude on-off-keying return-to-zero
(RZ) format bits in its spectrum; in the worst possible case this
would broaden the pulse by a factor of 16-to about 1.6 ps
FWHM. The encoded pulses can, therefore, be well confined in
a 4 ps optical switching window without much distortion to the
encoded spectrum. By doing this, the Time Division Multiplex-
ing (TDM) system can benefit from spectrum encoding by a
factor of 16 and the achievable Data Translation Rate (DTR) can
be as high as 4 Tbps.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi continues to do

some basic work in the area of software development for assem-
bling optical computers using genetic algorithms. The optimi-
zation is done for the optical array assignment problems that
arise in the assembly of optical computers using imperfect
optical arrays. The important feature of the algorithms being

20 RESONANCE J July 2003

 GENERAL J ARTICLE

considered is that they increase the utilization of the arrays

through transformations such as translation, rotation, and a
combination of both. IIT, Delhi has taken a leading role in
algorithmic work in optical computing, their faculty has made
fundamental contributions in tt~e areas of optical neural net-
works, optical encryption, non-linear optical characterization,
optical storage, pattern recognition, and optical image process-
ing.

Conclusion
Research in optical computing has opened up new possibilities
in several fields related to high-performance computing, high-
speed communications, and parallel algorithm design. To de-
sign algorithms that execute applications faster, the specific
properties of optics must be considered, such as their ability to
exploit massive parallelism, and global interconnections. As
optoelectronic and smart pixel devices mature, software devel-
opment will have a major impact in the future and the ground
rules for the computing may have to be rewritten.

Suggested Reading

[1] Hossin Abdeldayem, Donald O Frazier, Mark S Paley and William K

Witherow, Recent Advances in Photonic Devices for Optical Comput-
ing, at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/images/nanosecond/
thepaper.PDF.
[2] Debabrata Goswami, Laser phase modulation approaches towards
ensemble quantum computing, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 177901, 2002.
[3] Debabrata Goswami, Optical Pulse Shaping Approaches to Coherent
Control, Physics Reports 374, 385, 2003.
[4] H H Arsenault, T Szoplik and B Macukow, Optical Processing and
Computing, Academic Press, 1989.
[5] D G Feitelson, Optical Computing, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Ma- Address for Correspondence
Debabrata Goswami
ssachusetts, USA, 1988.
[6] Cornelia Denz, OpticalNeuralNerworks, Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1998. Tata Institute of Fundamental
[7] Todd Main, Robert J Feuerstein, Harry F Jordan, Vincent P Heuring, Research
John Feehrer, Carl Love, 'Implementationof a general purpose stored Homi Bhabha Road
program digital optical computer,' Applied Optics, 33, 1619, 1994. Colabo, Mumbai 400005
Email: debu@lifr.res.in
http://www.tifr.res.in/~debu

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