Persistent spectral hole burning in an organic material for temporal pattern recognition

A broad-bandwidth persistent spectral hole-burning organic material is used as a fast optical processor that compares an input temporal-frequency prof ile with a recorded reference spectral shape. This pattern-recognition proc edure relies on a subpicosecond temporal cross-correlation process. The siz e of the phase-encoding spectral interval exceeds I THz. The storage materi al, the spectral encoder, and the interferometric detector are examined in detail for optimal pattern discrimination. Experimental temporal pattern-re cognition results are reported. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America. [S0740 -3224(99)02101-3]. OCIS codes: 090.0090, 020.1670, 070.5010, 320.5390, 200. 4740, 190.4380.