A Bimodal Optical Computer (BOC) is presented. The speed and accuracy of the BOC are studied and compared with that of the digital computer. Accuracies comparable to that of the digital computer are achievable, while BOC speed is far more superior in solving a system of linear equations. This advantage in speed increases with the increase of the size of the matrix. The problem of the convergence of the solution using the BOC is investigated. It is found that even with using electro-optical systems with an error as high as 50% in the optical mask and 1% in the electro-optical devices, convergence was achieved for matrices with condition numbers of 25. The effect of the condition number on the convergence of the solution is investigated. It is found that matrices with large condition numbers converge very slowly. Convergence for matrices with condition numbers of higher than 250 was achieved. Some means of improving the condition number of matrix are also introduced.

Date Published: 8 January 1987
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 0700, 1986 Intl Optical Computing Conf, (8 January 1987); doi: 10.1117/12.936946

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0700:
1986 Intl Optical Computing Conf
Asher A. Friesem; Emanuel Marom; Joseph Shamir, Editor(s)