Objective
The aim of the present project is the study, design and realisation of an all-optical active nonlinear mirror (ANLM), to be used for all-optical time division demultiplexing and possibly in other all-optical processes. This device will be based on the nonlinear interaction between two optical beams, one of them with a frequency twice that of the other beam, at the surface and/or at the bulk of a second-order nonlinear material structure. These two beams will correspond to the control and signal waves, respectively, that are involved in a demultiplexing operation. In our case, the second harmonic beam will be used to control the reflectivity of the device for the signal beam, allowing in this way appropriate routing of that later beam. The instantaneous character of the second-order nonlinear optical interaction should allow to eliminate the considerable slow-down driving signal manipulation inherent to presently operative methods requiring transformation of the optical signal into an electric signal.
The approach to achieve this goal is the following. In a first phase, of duration nine months, we plan to theoretically and experimentally demonstrate the phenomenon of controllable (active) nonlinear reflection in two simple material structures, in which the phenomenon occurs either at the surface of the nonlinear material (objective1) or in the bulk of the material when it is placed inside an optical cavity (objective 2). Next, and taking into account the results obtained in the objectives 1 and 2, we plan to identify the most appropriate type of material configuration to achieve (in the second phase of the project) the ANLM, giving sufficient evidence that the efficiency and characteristics expected for the final device will be appropriate for application in all-optical information processing operations, in particular in optical time division demultiplexing. At the end of the first phase, one or two European groups expert in growing material structures will be contacted, in order to join the consortium for the second phase of the project.
The second phase, as indicated above, will be devoted to: complete the theoretical characterisation of the material structure identified in the first phase as the optimum one for construction of the ANLM, studying its response to electromagnetic fields; obtain the most appropriate materials; implement or fabricate a prototype of the device, and test experimentally its behaviour in conditions reproducing those that would be encountered in a real time-division demultiplexing system.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesphysical scienceselectromagnetism and electronicselectromagnetism
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencedata processing
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Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
ACM - Preparatory, accompanying and support measuresCoordinator
08028 Barcelona
Spain