Optical output silicon retina chip

We describe a unique implementation of an optical-in/optical-out focal plane processor whose functionality is derived from a biological retina. The retina chip has increased control over the output through a novel differential difference amplifier and a clocked analog scheme. Processing is done on-chip to produce an edge-detected version of the optical input signal. However, the output signal is also optical, enabled by a liquid crystal spatial light modulator on the chip. We present experimental results from a 19 × 19 array and demonstrate how the edge information can be controlled on-chip and read out in parallel from each processing cell.