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Photonic switching devices using light bullets
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 1997 |
| Description | The present invention is directed toward a unique ultra-fast, all-optical switching device or switch made with readily available, relatively inexpensive, highly nonlinear photonic glasses. These photonic glasses have a sufficiently negative group velocity dispersion and high nonlinear index of refraction to support stable light bullets. The light bullets counterpropagate through, and interact within the waveguide to selectively change each others' directions of propagation into predetermined channels. In one embodiment, the switch utilizes a rectangularly planar slab waveguide, and further includes two central channels and a plurality of lateral channels for guiding the light bullets into and out of the waveguide. One advantage presented by the present all-optical switching device lies in its practical use of light bullets, thus preventing the degeneration of the pulses due to dispersion and diffraction at the front and back of the pulses. Another feature of the switching device is the relative insensitivity of the collision process to the time difference in which the counter-propagating pulses enter the waveguide. since. contrary to conventional co-propagating spatial solitons, the relative phase of the colliding pulses does not affect the interaction of these pulses. Yet another feature of the present all-optical switching device is the selection of the light pulse parameters which enables the generation of light bullets in highly nonlinear glasses. |
| File Size | 921731 |
| Page Count | 13 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19970026580 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t9q28v96s |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 1997-07-22 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Optics Patents Group Velocity Light Visible Radiation Optical Switching Glass Switches Refractivity Electromagnetic Pulses Nonlinear Optics Optical Waveguides Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports ServerĀ (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Patent |