Research Initiation: Volume Holographic Optical Interconnection

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Optical interconnecting elements can potentially act as a powerful alternative to electrical wiring, because photons lack the interactive nature of electrons. As a result, photonic interconnections offer minimal signal deterioration, immunity to parasitic (capacitive or inductive) loading, and insensitivity to EMI, amongst other advantages. Current optical interconnects are based primarily on optical fibers, on planar configurations of the thin-film holographic type or on optical spatial light modulators which can perform matrix- vector or matrix-matrix multiplications. However, the interconnection capacity of schemes using thin holograms is restricted by the area of the hologram and the operating efficiency is limited by the narrow interaction region of the film thickness. On the other hand, optical interconnection systems based on spatial light modulators are complicated and bulky. The work projected here is a theoretical and experimental investigation of a recently proposed three-dimensional class of photonic interconnections utilizing photorefractive crystals. These novel configurations are based on volume (rather than planar) holographic geometries. Their operation involves a composite Bragg- reflection mechanism provided by a large multiplicity of holographic gratings; the gratings are generated inside the volume by the optical inputs themselves according to a prescribed interconnection pattern.