Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser

Machine learning

Optics

Physics

Optical computing

Neuromorphic engineering

Fiber laser

Biological neuron model

Materials science

Photonics

Saturable absorption

Computer science

Optoelectronics

Artificial neural network

Laser

Bistability

Optics Letters

We propose a simple hardware architecture for solving exclusive OR (XOR) tasks in a single step by using a single photonic spiking neuron based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with an embedded saturable absorber (VCSEL-SA) subject to dual-polarized pulsed optical injection. We model the inhibitory photonic spiking neuron by extending the Yamada model and spin-flip model to incorporate the two polarization-resolved modes and the saturable absorber. It is shown that, by carefully adjusting the temporal difference according to the inhibitory window, the XOR operation can be realized in a single photonic spiking neuron, which is interesting and valuable for the photonic neuromorphic computing and information processing.

All-optical neuromorphic XOR operation with inhibitory dynamics of a single photonic spiking neuron based on a VCSEL-SA