Application of Diffractive Optics to Free-Space Optical Interconnects

Diffractive optics, a branch of computer generated holography, is applied to the problem of providing optical interconnects to free-space optoelectronic computers. The general theory and fabrication of diffractive optics is described in detail, including computer-aided design and e-beam direct-write techniques. Numeric-type diffractive optics, namely kinoforms, are applied to interconnect applications, and experimental results are presented for broadcast and hypercube interconnections. A theoretical investigation into the application of analytic-type diffractive optics to interconnects is carried out, including identification of possible system designs, performance parameter calculations (e.g. volume, aspect ratio, light throughput, signal to noise ratio, and hologram complexity), and tradeoffs between system designs. Finally, experimental results of analytic -type diffractive optics applied to space-variant optical interconnects (e.g. shuffle exchange and twin butterfly) are presented.