摘要 |
A method and system for searching for a given sequence in a data base having a multitude of reference sequences stored or identified therein. In accordance with this method, a light beam is modulated with patterns representing the reference sequences, and with a pattern representing the given sequence, and a correlation signal is generated representing the correlation of the reference and given sequences. Optical diffraction patterns may be used to represent the given and reference sequences. In one embodiment, a multitude of first diffraction patterns, each one representing the given sequence, are formed in an optical medium, and a light beam is modulated with each of those multitude of diffraction patterns to form a multi-channel signal beam. Each channel of that beam is then modulated with a respective one second diffraction pattern representing one of the reference sequences to form a multi-channel correlation beam. The intensity of each channel of the correlation beam is then measured to determine whether the given sequence correlates with any of the reference sequences.
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