Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique--Énergie, Matériaux et Télécommunications, 1650 Boulevard Lionel Boulet, Varennes, Québec, Canada J3X 1S2.
Nat Commun. 2010 Jun 15;1(3):29. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1028.
All-optical circuits for computing and information processing could overcome the speed limitations intrinsic to electronics. However, in photonics, very few fundamental 'building blocks' equivalent to those used in multi-functional electronic circuits exist. In this study, we report the first all-optical temporal integrator in a monolithic, integrated platform. Our device--a lightwave 'capacitor-like' element based on a passive micro-ring resonator--performs the time integral of the complex field of an arbitrary optical waveform with a time resolution of a few picoseconds, corresponding to a processing speed of ∼200 GHz, and a 'hold' time approaching a nanosecond. This device, compatible with electronic technology (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor), will be one of the building blocks of next-generation ultrafast data-processing technology, enabling optical memories and real-time differential equation computing units.
全光电路可用于计算和信息处理，可以克服电子学固有的速度限制。然而，在光子学中，非常少的基本“构建块”等同于那些用于多功能电子电路的构建块。在这项研究中，我们报告了在单片、集成平台中首次实现的全光时间积分器。我们的设备——基于无源微环谐振器的光波“电容器样”元件——可以对任意光波形的复场进行时间积分，时间分辨率为几个皮秒，对应处理速度约为 200GHz，“保持”时间接近纳秒。这种与电子技术（互补金属氧化物半导体）兼容的器件将成为下一代超高速数据处理技术的构建块之一，实现光学存储器和实时微分方程计算单元。
