Method of all-optical frequency-encoded binary adder system using nonlinear waveguide and reflecting semiconductor optical amplifiers

Arithmetic and algebraic operations are the most important part of optical computation and data processing. To implement the optical logic operations, different data encoding/decoding techniques have been reported. Frequency variant encoding/decoding technique is now performing a very faithful role in this regard. Frequency is the fundamental character of any signal and it remains unaltered in reflection, refraction, absorption, etc. during propagation and transmission of the signal. This is the most potential advantage of the frequency encoding technique over any other conventional encoding techniques. Here, in our proposed scheme of addition of binary bits made of two encoded frequencies in C-band (1535–1560 nm), the conjugate beam is generated in LiNbO3 waveguide using cascaded sum and difference frequency generation by the nonlinear interaction with a third frequency, exploiting the nonlinear response character of periodically poled LiNbO3 waveguide. The cross-gain modulation property of reflecting semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA) has also been exploited here for frequency conversion purposes.