Acoustooptic linear heterodyned complex-valued matrix-vector processor.

A new analog (linear) optical vector-inner-product and matrix-vector processor architecture is described. It employs linear input laser-diode arrays and a multichannel acoustooptic cell. Attention is given to the selection of the operating modes for all devices, error correction, the ability of the system to operate on complex-valued data, and its stability with respect to temperature, data history, and component variations. Laboratory data are provided verifying the potential of the system architecture to achieve 9-10-bit accuracy and complex-valued multiplication.