Persistent spectral hole burning in an organic material for temporal pattern recognition

Abstract

A broad-bandwidth persistent spectral hole-burning organic material is used as a fast optical processor that compares an input temporal-frequency profile with a recorded reference spectral shape. This pattern-recognition procedure relies on a subpicosecond temporal cross-correlation process. The size of the phase-encoding spectral interval exceeds 1 THz. The storage material, the spectral encoder, and the interferometric detector are examined in detail for optimal pattern discrimination. Experimental temporal pattern-recognition results are reported.