Optical correlator that uses cesium vapor

We obtain the correlation pattern between two amplitude-modulated input images of 36 and 280 random black and white pixels, using the standard degenerate four-wave-mixing geometry of 852-nm optical beams in a 1-mm-thick cesium-vapor cell. The total optical input power is 3.2 mW to obtain 0.4 nW of p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inOptics letters Vol. 19; no. 21; p. 1765
Main Authors Biaggio, I, Ai, B, Knize, R J, Partanen, J P, Hellwarth, R W
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.11.1994
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Summary:We obtain the correlation pattern between two amplitude-modulated input images of 36 and 280 random black and white pixels, using the standard degenerate four-wave-mixing geometry of 852-nm optical beams in a 1-mm-thick cesium-vapor cell. The total optical input power is 3.2 mW to obtain 0.4 nW of power in the correlation pattern. We verified that the buildup time of the four-wave-mixing signal is ~30 ns. Using the random patterns, we analyze the performance of the cesium optical correlator in terms of the number of pixels that can be processed and the number of photons per pixel used. We show how to scale our experimental results for the efficiency of the cesium correlator to images containing a larger number of pixels.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/OL.19.001765