Towards Nanophotonic All-optical Image Processing

Abstract

The processing of spatial information, including images, is fundamental in modern scientific, industrial and medical applications. Some imaging techniques rely on amplitude information contained in a wavefield and permit conversion of optical information into electronic signals through conventional integrated photodetector technology and subsequent digital processing. The ever increasing complexity and volume of data that often needs to be processed in real-time and with low energy consumption in applications such as satellite imagery, autonomous vehicles or object and face recognition pushes current electronic systems to its limits. Other situations utilize the extraction of polarization or..