A Constant-Time Parallel Sorting Algorithm and Its Optical Implementation

High-speed electronic sorting networks are difficult to implement with VLSI technology because of the dense and global connectivity required. Optics eliminates this bottleneck by offering global interconnections, massive parallelism, and noninterfering communications. We present a parallel sorting algorithm and its efficient optical implementation using currently available optical hardware. The algorithm sorts n data elements in a few steps, independent of the number of elements to be sorted. Thus, it is a constant-time sorting algorithm, that is, O(1) time.