Theory of photorefractive time-division demultiplexing

Previous work has presented an optical approach to frequency- division multiplexing that allows entire images to be demultiplexed in a single operation. In this paper, we introduce the photorefractive theory for baseband transmission and demultiplexing of video images. In addition, we introduce the photorefractive linear theory for calculating the number of images that can be demultiplexed. Our calculation shows that given our assumptions, it is theoretically possible to demultiplex a large number of images for materials with small electro-optic coefficients. When a photorefractive medium that has a large electro-optic coefficient is used, then there is significant noise that arises because of non-linear interactions within the crystal. Increasing the number of stored images reduces the recall efficiency but does not change this noise.