Work

All optical on-chip nonlinear activation functions for multi-wavelength computation

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This work proposes an all-optical on-chip nonlinear activation function unit for multi-wavelength computing applications. Our proposed unit utilizes the unique properties of silicon, specifically the two-photon absorption and thermo-optic effects, to achieve nonlinearity essential for optical neural networks. We designed the parameters of the corresponding unit structure through simulation, fabricated and tested the actual structure experimentally, and obtained a CELU-like response curve. In practical classification tasks, we evaluated its performance in various classification tasks through numerical simulation and achieved a recognition accuracy of 98.84% on the MNIST dataset. This work addresses a critical gap in multi-wavelength systems and contributes to the development of more powerful and efficient optical computing platforms.

Source: Optics Express

DOI: 10.1364/oe.558267

Authors: Gongyu Xia, Jiacheng Liu, Pingyu Zhu, Qilin Hong, Ping Xu, Zhihong Zhu

Institution: National University of Defense Technology

Language: English

Topic: Neural Networks and Reservoir Computing

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,270

Funder: National Key Research and Development Program of China