Interdisciplinary Theory & Technology

A programmable optical processing device employing a plurality of programmable light modulator elements. First and second optical elements are positioned to create an optical region therebetween comprising a Fourier transform plane and at least one non-Fourier optical region from the Fourier transform plane. In one embodiment at least one of these non-Fourier optical region comprises fractional Fourier regions. Multiple programmable light modulator elements located in non-Fourier optical region may be adjacently stacked, spatially separated, or separated by GRIN material. The programmable light modulator elements further implement optical transfer functions that are positive-definite or non-positive-definite, and which may be controlled by electrical and/or optical control signals. In one embodiment the system may comprise a monolithic device and/or be comprised by a monolithic device. The resulting system may be adapted to operate as an optical computing processor or optical computing processor, and the latter may further adapted to perform complex-valued arithmetic.