OPTICAL INFORMATION-PROCESSING AND ITS APPLICATIONS

This report presents research on parallel optical information processing technology currently under development by the authors. Data for multimedia applications, such as image processing and voice recognition, consists of a large amount of data so that high performance processing becomes necessary. It is thought that parallel optical information processing is capable of performing suitably fast parallel calculations. We have fabricated an optically-addressed liquid crystal spatial light modulator (SLM) that is a necessary component for optical information processing systems. A system using this SLM has succeeded in generating a real time hologram. The system can also perform instant edge extraction and singular pattern detection, based on phase conjugate technology. In the future, we intend to develop a three-dimensional holographic display for moving images. Another system consisting of an LED modulator is being developed for applications, such as DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) calculation. These technologies will contribute to the development of new multimedia systems.