All-optical image switch based on bacteriorhodopsin film

While two waves are coupled in bacteriorhodopsin (bR) film, a beam of incident light carrying the image is transferred to two diffraction beams whose intensities can increase from zero to a maximum and then decrease to a stable value with the increase of the writing time. Based on the relation among the polarization states of image in a recording beam and diffraction beams, we have proposed and demonstrated the all-optical image transfer switch which depends on the effective time and has the function that within the effective time, a polarization state image is automatically transferred to two images whose polarization states are perpendicular, and the transfer stops automatically beyond the effective time. A time-dependent all-optical image switch with muti-outputs is implemented.