All optical Q-switched laser based spiking neuron

Abstract

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This paper studies theoretically the use of a Q-switch laser with side light injection as a spiking all-optical neuron for photonic spiking neural networks (PSNN). Ordinary differential equations for the multi-section laser are presented, including terms for the side light injection for gain quenching and saturable absorption. The behaviour of the laser mimics that of a spiking neuron with ultrafast pico-second scale response and low power control signals.

Keywords

• spiking neural networks
• artificial intelligence
• leaky integrate and fire neuron
• neuromorphic computing
• silicon photonics