Science Daily March 22, 2019
Signal processing of light waves can be used to represent certain mathematical functions and to perform computational tasks on signals or images in an analog fashion using complex systems of bulk optical elements such as lenses, filters, and mirrors. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated that specially designed nanophotonic structures can take input waveforms encoded as complex mathematical functions, manipulate them, and provide an output that is the integral of the functions. The results, demonstrated for microwaves, provide a route to develop chip-based analog optical computers and computing elements… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
The device works by encoding parameters into the properties of an incoming electromagnetic wave; once inside, the device’s unique structure manipulates the wave in such a way that it exits encoded with the solution to a pre-set integral equation for that arbitrary input. Credit: Eric Sucar