A photonic neuromorphic computational primitive for complex high bandwidth signal processing

摘要

The photonic computational primitive presented in this paper is the first all optical implementation of a spiking leaky integrate and fire (LIF) neuron. Due to its hybrid analog/digital nature it is capable of overcoming both the noise problems of purely analog optical devices and the limited computational capabilities of individual digital optical devices. It is possible to chain together large numbers of these devices, each individually capable of significant computation, to implement far more complex computations on high bandwidth signals than is currently possible. This device represents both a technology capable of scaling the complexity of computations that can be performed on high-bandwidth signals, and a contribution to the nacent field of photonic neuromorphic engineering. This technology applies to a wide range of avionics applications in which data bandwidth is too high or the response delay too short for electronic processing.