Optical implementation of the Hopfield model

Optical implementation of content addressable associative memory based on the Hopfield model for neural networks and on the addition of nonlinear iterative feedback to a vector–matrix multiplier is described. Numerical and experimental results presented show that the approach is capable of introducing accuracy and robustness to optical processing while maintaining the traditional advantages of optics, namely, parallelism and massive interconnection capability. Moreover a potentially useful link between neural processing and optics that can be of interest in pattern recognition and machine vision is established.