Novel optical neural network architecture with the temporal synthetic dimension

Abstract

Optical neural networks, employing optical fields and photonic tools to perform artificial neural network computations, are rapidly advancing and are generating a broad interest and sparking new applications. We propose a nascent approach for realizing the optical neural network utilizing a single resonator network, where the arrival times of optical pulses are interconnected to construct a synthetic temporal dimension. The set of pulses in each roundtrip therefore provides the sites in each layer in the optical neural network, and can be linearly transformed with splitters and delay lines, including the phase modulators, when pulses circulate inside the network. Such linear transformation can be arbitrarily controlled by applied modulation phases, which serve as the building block of the neural network together with a nonlinear component for pulses. We validate the functionality of the proposed optical neural network using an example of a complicated wine classification problem. This proof of principle demonstration opens up an opportunity to develop a photonics-based machine learning in a single ring network utilizing the concept of synthetic dimensions. Our approach holds flexibility and easiness of reconfiguration with potentially complex functionality in achieving desired optical tasks, pointing towards promisingly perform on-chip optical computations with further miniaturization.

Synthetic frequency dimensions in dynamically modulated ring resonators

“…As opposed to frequency-encoding, an alternative platform for scalable, deterministic quantum computation has been proposed using a synthetic time dimension in a ring loop coupled to a single cavity-coupled atom or quantum emitter 140 . A very similar loop-based time-multiplexed architecture also finds potential in creating a photonic neural network 141 . Furthermore, timemultiplexing has resulted in entanglement generation between more than a million quantum modes, which is the largest number of entangled modes till date 142 .…”