All-optical frequency-encoded inversion operation with tristate logic using reflecting semiconductor optical amplifiers

Optics has already proved its strong potential in information and data processing because of its inherent parallelism. Several all-optical data processors were proposed since the last few decades. Again it is also known that tristate operations can be well accommodated with optics in data and information processing, as this type of operation can enhance the information quality and capacity. Very recently, the concept of frequency variant encoding/decoding technique has been established because of its basic advantages. The potential advantage of frequency-dependent encoding/decoding is that, as the frequency is the fundamental character of a signal, it will remain unaltered in reflection, refraction, absorption, etc. during transmission. In this communication, the authors therefore propose a method of implementing frequency-encoded inversion logic operations with tristate logic using reflecting semiconductor optical amplifiers (RSOA). (c) 2009 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.