All-optical neural network with nonlinear activation functions

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been widely used for industrial applications and have played a more important role in fundamental research. Although most ANN hardware systems are electronic-based, their optical implementation is particularly attractive because of its intrinsic parallelism and low energy consumption. Here, we demonstrate a fully functioning all-optical neural network (AONN), in which linear operations are programmed by spatial light modulators and Fourier lenses, while nonlinear optical activation functions are realized in laser-cooled atoms with electromagnetically induced transparency. Because all errors from different optical neurons are independent, it is possible to scale up the…

• RG
  Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee

  Awards: ECS26302118, C6005-17G