Optics in Information Science Division

Integrating photonic and electronic processing to enhance the transformation of data into information

Division Overview

The Optics in Information Science Division is a community of information scientists interested in applications of photonics in digital systems, systems engineers interested in interfaces between analog and digital systems, and physical scientists interested in the representation of data in physical form. Applications include verification and validation for security, image processing, and digital interconnects.

Topics within the division include:

• Fundamental information science, such as information theory and coding for photonic systems and computational complexity and algorithms for sensing, processing and communications
• Analog/Digital interfaces, including analog and digital processing in sensors and transceivers and digital to analog interfaces for multimedia and sentient environments
• Digital analysis of optical data, including pattern recognition, target identification and tracking and biometric analysis
• Physical information processing, including field transformations in thin and volume holograms, photonic crystals and spectral holograms for applications in information display, sensing and storage and nonlinear transformations for information processing and switching
• Physical limits of information, including optics in quantum, molecular and mesoscopic computing systems

Work performed by members of the Optics in Information Science Division is exemplified by the following Grand Challenges:

• Improve the performance of pattern recognition systems by exploiting the capabilities of optics and electronics in parallel processors
• Demonstrate chip-to-chip interconnects operating at hundreds of gigabits per second

What’s Hot in Optics Today?

Find out more about the current activities of this division, as well as emerging topics in the field and current challenges by reading this presentation by Eric Johnson, Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte, Division Chair.

Division Overview Presentation

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Technical Groups

Holography and Diffractive Optics (IH)

Concentrates on linear transformations of optical fields

This group focuses on the physical and information science, devices, systems and materials of displays and holograms. Holography is described in terms of the physical principles of interference and diffraction and associated effects. It usually relates to the recording or production of electromagnetic wavefronts, which may include the properties of amplitude, phase, polarization and color. Other types of wave phenomena such as acoustical waves are also included. The members of the group do not limit themselves to one region of the electromagnetic spectrum but view the principle of holography as being applicable from radio frequencies through x-rays and beyond. Emerging areas within this group include: applications in sensing and optical interconnection of three dimensional diffractives, photonic crystals and microresonators arrays, wavefront coding using digital optical elements, and integration of diffractive and optoelectronic components.

Imaging Sensing in Pattern Recognition (IR)

Concentrates on the conversion of information from the physical world into the digital

The two main challenges in optical information processing as it relates to pattern recognition are the optical devices and instruments required for pattern recognition and their performance as a pattern recognition system.

The field of optical methods for pattern recognition held considerable promise 15 years ago. It appeared then that correlators were on the brink of success, and would out-perform digital systems. Unfortunately, the promise of economically viable spatial light modulators (SLMs) that deliver adequate dynamic range at sufficiently fast rates never materialized. Although great strides have been made in display devices and related technology, the consumer market has not driven the development of SLMs in the same manner as it has flat panel displays and laptop screens. As a result, there hasn’t been a rapid growth (or a major price drop) in the SLM arena. Nevertheless, SLMs today are notably improved than a decade ago, and allow reasonable accuracy to be achieved. Meanwhile, the problem has been compounded by the fact that digital computers have become faster, cheaper and packaged more efficiently (not to mention they are far more precise). It is therefore unlikely that purely optical solutions will gain favor. However, one intrinsic drawback of more popular commercial computers is that they still process data in a serial fashion (albeit at fast data rates). Since optics continues to hold promise for parallel processing, it may be beneficial to design hybrid systems that enhance the limited parallel processing capabilities of modern computers. Early work along these lines has led to optical co-processors, such as correlators designed as PC card. There is however a gap between co-processors and optical components integrated into digital processors. The Altivec or MMX architectures on the G4 and Pentium processors are examples of digital enhancements that have been incorporated into the chip. The challenge is the development of optical devices capable of introducing phenomenal parallelism into architectures for modern digital signal processors (DSPs).

In pattern recognition performance, the challenge lies in developing robust algorithms that are amenable to optical signal processing architectures. The methods developed in the optics community often compete with those developed by the computer vision community. The latter favors a model-based approach, which does not readily lend itself to optical implementations. However, digital methods for pattern recognition do not outpace optical by any means. After three decades of research, robust solutions elude us for applications such as face recognition, object recognition for robot vision, and target recognition for defense systems. Nevertheless, the payoff for success is high and the area continues to be of great interest to the community. Often, the data itself is acquired using electro-optical sensors including CCD, infrared (IR) or Laser Radar (LADAR) imaging systems. The challenge for optical information processing is to develop robust methods for processing data from EO sensors not only in a robust manner, but also map the algorithms into the parallel processing features inherent in optical systems.

In summary, the challenge is to marry the potential of optical devices with modern DSPs to usher in a new era of parallelism in popular commercial computers and to lead the race toward robust pattern recognition solutions that are amenable to parallel processing enhanced by optics. If successful, this will be a significant contribution by the optical information processing community to today’s technology, and in return the market demand and opportunities will ensure sustained scientific interest and growth.

This group is concerned with analog and digital processing in sensing and imaging systems, algorithms for sensor system control and for data analysis, sensor networks and data fusion, pattern recognition and tracking. Examples include: computational image formation (e.g. computed tomography, image interferometry), image compression, image enhancement, image evaluation, image quality, image reconstruction, inverse problems, pattern recognition, phase retrieval, properties of image transforms, signal recovery, signal synthesis, and superresolution. Emerging areas within this group include: integrated computational imaging systems, sparse aperture sensor arrays, biometric sensors for information and physical security, real-time pattern recognition systems and novel diffuse and projective tomographies.

Optics for Multimedia and Immersive Environments (IM)

Concentrates on the conversion of information from the digital world into the physical

This group focuses on displays and sensors for interactive environments, including materials, optoelectronic interfaces and micromechanical devices for effective information display and sensors for adaptive and interactive display. Emerging areas include optics for compact head-mounted displays, sensors for head and body tracking, algorithms and embedded processing for real-time interactivity.

Optics in Digital Systems (IS)

The first insertion of optics in commercial telecommunications systems was in fiber optic transport. The combination of low power and extremely long transmission distances made optical communications an attractive alternative to electrical data transport. However, as optoelectronics has matured, the break-even length (the length at which optical transmission consumes as much power as electrical transmission) has shrunk from long haul applications of many kilometers to local area networks within a building and down to system area networks of a few tens of centimeters within a single chassis. As the break-even length continues to decrease, links only a few centimeters in length like those on a circuit board may benefit from replacing electronic connections with photonic ones.

In fact, in the late 1990’s advances in packaging allowed optoelectronic elements to be readily interfaced to integrated electronic circuits. This has enabled the design of interconnect modules with link rates on the order of several gigabits per second. Parallel fiber links with typically ten connections each running at the order of 10 Gb/s are currently being used in commercial computing systems like workstations and multiprocessor clusters.

Of considerable interest to the research community is the design and integration of optoelectronic components for links operating at hundreds of gigabits per second. In addition to novel laser sources and detectors, for example based on quantum dot technology, optical channels matched to these emitters and receivers are also required. To achieve high data rates, laser sources must either be driven at high operating currents, which reduces their lifetime, or modulated externally, which complicates packaging. Solving these issues may make optical links as prevalent in the short reach domain as they are for long haul telecommunications.

This group focuses on utilization of optical and optoelectronic devices and systems for digital data storage, processing, interconnection and networking. The group focuses both on the physical representation of information and on coding and communication protocols for effective utilization of photonic systems. Emerging areas within this group include: optical interconnections and optical clock distribution for high performance computing, nanomaterials and microresonators for spatio-spectral data storage and coding schemes for all-optical communications.

Physical Systems for Information Processing (IP)

Concentrates on nonlinear transformations of optical fields

This group focuses on nonlinear transformations of optical signals for information processing. Emerging areas include: optical systems for quantum computing, quantum data storage and quantum lithography, ultrafast switching for optical communications and computing and optical interfaces to nano-scale processing elements

Division Leadership

David Plant, Division Chair (9/07-10/09) McGill University McConnell Eng. Bldg. 3480 University St. Montreal QC H3A-2A7 CANADA Tel: +1 514.398.2989 Fax: +1 514.398.3127 E-mail: plant@photonics.ece.mcgill.ca

Holography and Diffractive Optics

Markus E. Testorf, Chair (10/06-10/08) Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering 8000 Cummings Hall Hanover, NH 03755-8000 Tel: +1 603.646.2610 Fax: +1 603.646.3856 E-mail: Markus.E.Testorf@Dartmouth.edu

Uriel Levy, Vice-Chair (9/07-10/08) The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Selim and Rachel Benin School of Engineering Department of Applied Physics Givat Ram Campus, Jerusalem, 91904 ISRAEL Tel: +972.2.658.4256 Fax: +972.2.566.3878 E-mail: ulevy@cc.huji.ac.il

Imaging Sensing in Pattern Recognition

George Barbastathis, Chair (10/06-10/08) MIT 77 Massachusetts Ave. Rm. 3-461C Cambridge MA 02139-0000 Tel: +1 617.253.1960 Fax: +1 617.258.9346 E-mail: gbarb@mit.edu

Optics for Multimedia and Immersive Environments

Mark Lucente, Chair (9/07-10/09) Zebra Imaging, Inc. 9801 Metric Blvd., Ste 200 Austin , TX 78758 Tel: +1 512.583.1371 E-mail: mark@lucente.us

Optics in Digital Systems

Alyssa Apsel, Chair (9/07-10/09) Cornell University Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering 412 Phillips Hall Ithaca NY 14853-0000 Tel:  +1 607.255.3962 Fax:  +1 413.280.9887 E-mail: apsel@ece.cornell.edu

Physical Systems for Information Processing

Dan M. Marom, Chair (9/07-10/09) Hebrew University of Jerusalem Edmund J. Safra, Campus Applied Physics Department 91904 Jerusalem ISRAEL Tel: +972.2.658.4851 Fax: +972.2.566.3878 E-mail: danmarom@cc.huji.ac.il