Experimental Investigation of Optical Processing With Spatial Light Modulation

Abstract: The growing demand for real-time data processing in applications such as neural networks and embedded control systems has spurred the search for faster, more efficient alternatives to traditional electronic systems. In response, we experimentally investigate an optical processing scheme that encodes information in the transverse wavefront of light fields using spatial light modulators. Our goal is to explore the limits on parallelism imposed by technical constraints. We begin by implementing optical an XOR logic gate applied to binary matrices. By analyzing the average error rate in the optical operation between matrices of varying sizes (up to 300 x 300 elements), we analyze the bit depth capacity of the system and the role of information redundancy. Furthermore, we successfully demonstrate image encryption and decryption using a one-time pad protocol for matrices as large as 164 x 164 elements. These findings support the development of a high-dimensional matrix optical processor.