530 CHINESE OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 7, No. 6 / June 10, 2009
All-optical adder/subtractor based on terahertz optical
asymmetric demultiplexer
Dilip Kumar Gayen
1∗
, Rajat Kumar Pal
2
, and Jitendra Nath Roy
3
1
Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Management, Kolaghat, India
2
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Calcutta University, Kolkatta-700009, India
3
Department of Physics, College of Engineering and Management, Kolaghat
KTPP Township, Midnapur (East), 721171, W.B., India
∗
E-mail: dilipgayen@yahoo.com
Received August 4, 2008
An all-optical adder/subtractor (A/S) unit with the help of terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer
(TOAD) is proposed. The all-optical A/S unit with a set of all-optical full-adders and optical exclusive-
ORs (XORs), can be used to perform a fast central processor unit using optical hardware components.
We try to exploit the advantages of TOAD-based optical switch to design an integrated all-optical circuit
which can perform binary addition and subtraction. With computer simulation results confirming the
described methods, conclusions are given.
OCIS codes: 200.4560, 060.1810, 060.4510, 220.4830, 230.4320.
doi: 10.3788/COL20090706.0530.
The emergence of increasingly high speed digital opti-
cal system and optical processor dema nds an all-optical
adder/subtrac tor (A/S) unit to perform a set of opti-
cal arithmetic micro-op e rations. All-optical A/S units
have many potential applications in optical communica-
tion systems and optical computing. Various architec-
tures, algorithms, and logical and arithmetic operations
have been proposed in the field o f optical/optoele c tronic
computing and parallel signal process ing in last few
decades
[1−9]
. Terahertz optical asymmetric demulti-
plexer (TOAD) based gate has already played significant
roles in the field of ultra-fast all-optical information
processing
[10−14]
. Sokoloff et al. demonstra ted a new
device, the TOAD capable of demultiplexing data at
50 Gb/s
[10]
. They have also demonstrated demul-
tiplexing of a single channel from a 250-Gb/s data
stream. TOAD exploits the strong, slow optical
nonlinearities presented in semiconductor and per-
mits control and signal pulses to be distinguished
by polarization or wavelength, and it requires less
than 1-pJ switching energy
[10]
. In our earlier pa-
per, we proposed TOAD-based tree ar chitecture for
all-optical logic and arithmetic operations
[15]
, all-
optical a rithmetic unit
[16]
and number conversion
scheme
[17]
. In this letter, we propose a TOAD-based
switch to design an integrated all-optical circuit which
can perform binary addition and subtraction. With the
help of TOAD-based all-optical full-adder and optica l
exclusive-OR (XOR), we propose an A/S unit which can
work in all-optical domain. Simulation of proposed de-
sign has also been done with the help of Matlab-6.5.
The TOAD consists of a loo p mirror with an additional
intraloop 2×2 (ideally 50:5 0) coupler. The loop contains
a control pulse (CP) and a nonlinear element (NLE) that
is offset from the loop’s midpoint by a distance ∆x as
shown in Fig. 1(a)
[10]
. In this letter, we try to take the
output from the reflecting mode and transmitting mode
of the device.
The output power at port-1 and port-2 can be ex-
pressed as
[18,19]
P
out
(t)=
P
in
(t)
4
·
G
cw
(t) + G
ccw
(t)
∓2
p
G
cw
(t) · G
ccw
(t) · cos
∆ϕ
, (1)
where G
cw
(t) and G
ccw
(t) are the power g ains between
cw and ccw pulse, respectively, the phase differ e nce
∆ϕ=−α/2·ln (G
cw
/G
ccw
), and α is the line-width en-
hancement factor. In the absence of a control signal, the
incoming signal enters the fiber loop and passes through
the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) at different
time as they counter-propagate around the loop, expe-
riencing the same unsa turated amplifier gain G
0
, and
recombining at the input c oupler, i.e., G
ccw
= G
cw
.
Then ∆ϕ = 0 and expression for P
out,1
(t) = 0 and
P
out,2
(t) = P
in
(t) · G
0
. It shows that the data is reflected
back towards the source. When a control pulse is injected
into the loo p, it saturates the SOA and changes its index
of refraction. As a result, the two counter-propagation
data signals will experience a differential gain saturation
profiles, i.e., G
ccw
6= G
cw
. Therefore they recombine at
the input coupler, and then ∆ϕ ≈ π. The data will exit
from the output port-1 and P
out,2
(t) ≈ 0. A po larization
or wavelength filter may be used at the output to reject
the control and pass the input pulse. Now it is clear
that in the absence of control signal, the incoming pulse
exits through the input port of TOAD and reaches the
output port-2 as shown in Fig. 1(a). In this case no light
is present in the output port-1. But in the presence of
control signal, the incoming signa l exits through the out-
put port of TOAD and reaches to the output port-1 as
shown in Fig. 1(a). In this case no light is present in the
output port- 2. In the absence of incoming signal, port-1
and port-2 receive no light as the filter blocks the control
1671-7694/2009/060530-04
c
2009 Chinese Optics Letters