SPATIAL PHASE CODING FOR INCOHERENT OPTICAL PROCESSORS

In this paper we introduce spatial phase coding of incoherent optical signals for representing signed numbers in optical processors and pres ent an experimental demonstration of this coding technique. If a diffr action grating, such as an acousto-optic cell, modulates a stream of l ight, the image of the grating can be recovered from the diffracted be am. The position of the grating image, or more precisely its phase, ca n be used to denote the sign of the number represented by the diffract ed light. The intensity of the light represents the magnitude of the n umber. This technique is more economical than current methods in terms of the number of information channels required to represent a number and the amount of post processing required.