Experimental demonstration of pyramidal neuron-like dynamics dominated by dendritic action potentials based on a VCSEL for all-optical XOR classification task

Abstract

We experimentally and numerically demonstrate an approach to optically reproduce a pyramidal neuron-like dynamics dominated by dendritic Ca 2 + action potentials (dCaAPs) based on a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) for the first time. The biological pyramidal neural dynamics dominated by dCaAPs indicates that the dendritic electrode evoked somatic spikes with current near threshold but failed to evoke (or evoked less) somatic spikes for higher current intensity. The emulating neuron-like dynamics is performed optically based on the injection locking, spiking dynamics, and damped oscillations in the optically injected VCSEL. In addition, the exclusive OR (XOR) classification task is examined in the VCSEL neuron equipped with the pyramidal neuron-like dynamics dominated by dCaAPs. Furthermore, a single spike or multiple periodic spikes are suggested to express the result of the XOR classification task for enhancing the processing rate or accuracy. The experimental and numerical results show that the XOR classification task is achieved successfully in the VCSEL neuron enabled to mimic the pyramidal neuron-like dynamics dominated by dCaAPs. This work reveals valuable pyramidal neuron-like dynamics in a VCSEL and offers a novel approach to solve XOR classification task with a fast and simple all-optical spiking neural network, and hence shows great potentials for future photonic spiking neural networks and photonic neuromorphic computing.

GHz Rate Neuromorphic Photonic Spiking Neural Network With a Single Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL)

“…Therefore, these early works have since opened the way for new reports of spiking VCSEL neurons capable of brain-inspired processing tasks (e.g. temporal pattern recognition and image edge feature detection) [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28]. The first experimental processing task performed by a spiking VCSEL neuron was the coincidence detection of two input pulses and the subsequent recognition of 4-bit input patterns [23].…”

“…These experimental results showcased for the first time that the neuronal behaviours of VCSELs could be harnessed and implemented in order to achieved an experimental optical spike-based pattern recognition task at near GHz rates. Similarly, spiking VCSEL neurons subject to dual modulated optical injection have been used to experimentally achieve all-optical XOR classification functionality, similar to the behaviour of biological pyramidal neurons [24].…”

Photonic neuromorphic computing using vertical cavity semiconductor lasers

“…It is only very recently that the first experimental demonstrators of spike processing systems, with VCSEL neurons for ultrafast neuromorphic photonic computing, have started to emerge [74][75][76][77][78][79] . Using VCSEL spiking neurons, several processing tasks, typical of artificial intelligence (AI) implementations, have been reported (e.g.…”

“…In the same work 74 , the authors used the leaky integrate-and-fire nature of a VCSEL-neuron to demonstrate experimentally a coincidence detection task, permitting the system to recognise the arrival of two different inputs within a very short temporal window (<420 ps). Similarly, all-optical XOR classification has been demonstrated on binary patterns, emulating pyramidal neurons, using an optical injection system subject to dual modulation 75 .…”

Spike propagation in a nanolaser-based optoelectronic neuron

“…In our case, the output of the neuron can be appreciably stronger than the input (taking advantage of the NDC amplification factor), which is not generally the case for all-optical neurons. An alternative to this is to use active laser sources with stronger material nonlinearities [20][21][22].…”