Electron optical trapping material (ETOM) has proven to be a viable material for thin film optical memory and is being explored commercially for read/write disk. The characteristics of ETOM are discussed including new measurements at femtosecond speeds. The advantages and disadvantages of ETOM are considered. An example of a hierarchical deflection system is provided that uses mirrors, AO cells and EO cells. The status of research in all-optical switches is reviewed briefly for Kerr, cross phase modulation, TOAD, directional couplers, and semiconductors. An example shows how switches can be used to interleave demultiplex an incoming optical fiber bit stream at greater than 10 Gbps into lower data rate channels for storage using deflectors or moving media.

Date Published: 12 June 1996
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 2754, Advances in Optical Information Processing VII, (12 June 1996); doi: 10.1117/12.243129

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2754:
Advances in Optical Information Processing VII
Dennis R. Pape, Editor(s)