Guest Editorial: Spatial Light Modulators

The real-time and parallel processing advantages of coherent optical processors are well known. The ease with which the Fourier transform and correlation operations (that are the hallmark of data processing and pattern recognition) can be performed optically has intrigued researchers for years. This once virgin discipline of optical computing is now maturing and emerging from the laboratory and research arena into deliverable and fielded systems. As this occurs, one of the key technology items that continues to plague program managers and contractors is the real-time and reusable spatial light modulator (SLM) used as the input (and often filter plane) transducer. Without such devices, the full speed advantages of optical processors cannot be realized.