Reversible logic elements as a new field of application of optical solitons

An analysis is made of the fundamental concepts of conservative logic. It is shown that the existing optical soliton switches can be converted into logic gates which act as conservative logic elements. A logic device of this type, based on a nonlinear fibre-optic directional coupler, is considered. Polarised solitons are used in this coupler. This use of solitons leads in a natural way to the desirability of developing conservative triple-valued logic.