A novel switch geometry using photorefractive crystals has been demonstrated which has nondestructive readout and reduces the order of complexity of a non-blocking switching network. It is a routing full duplex design capable of handling the full bandwidth of the input signals. It is fully reconfigurable in times which depend principally upon the photorefractive material used and the intensity of the writing beams. The concept is applicable for use with a variety of photorefractive materials. The capacity of this switch has been calculated to be on the order of 100, based upon the sum of inputs and outputs, but is primarily limited by its simultaneous interconnectability. This limit is set by the number of gratings which can be stored in a single photorefractive crystal at one time. A demonstration of a 2 x 3 switch using BGO with 514nm writing beams and 633nm signal (readout) beams is descibed.

Date Published: 3 May 1988
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 0881, Optical Computing and Nonlinear Materials, (3 May 1988); doi: 10.1117/12.944082

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0881:
Optical Computing and Nonlinear Materials
Nasser Peyghambarian, Editor(s)