Reservoir computing, originally referred to as an echo state network or a liquid state machine, is a braininspired paradigm for processing temporal information. It involves learning a "read-out" interpretation for nonlinear transients developed by high-dimensional dynamics when the latter is excited by the information signal to be processed. This novel computational paradigm is derived from recurrent neural network and machine learning techniques. It has recently been implemented in photonic hardware for a dynamical system, which opens the path to ultrafast brain-inspired computing. We report on a novel implementation involving an electro-optic phase-delay dynamics designed with off-the-shelf optoelectronic telecom devices, thus providing the targeted wide bandwidth. Computational efficiency is demonstrated experimentally with speech-recognition tasks. State-of-the-art speed performances reach one million words per second, with very low word error rate. Additionally, to record speed processing, our investigations have revealed computing-efficiency improvements through yet-unexplored temporalinformation-processing techniques, such as simultaneous multisample injection and pitched sampling at the read-out compared to information "write-in".

Photonic Neural Network implementations have been gaining considerable attention as a potentially disruptive future technology. Demonstrating learning in large scale neural networks is essential to establish photonic machine learning substrates as viable information processing systems. Realizing photonic Neural Networks with numerous nonlinear nodes in a fully parallel and efficient learning hardware was lacking so far. We demonstrate a network of up to 2500 diffractively coupled photonic nodes, forming a large scale Recurrent Neural Network. Using a Digital Micro Mirror Device, we realize reinforcement learning. Our scheme is fully parallel, and the passive weights maximize energy efficiency and bandwidth. The computational output efficiently converges and we achieve very good performance.

International audienceWe report high aspect ratio nanochannel fabrication in glass using single-shot femtosecond Bessel beams of sub-3 μJ pulse energies at 800 nm. We obtain near-parallel nanochannels with diameters in the range 200–800 nm, and aspect ratios that can exceed 100. An array of 230 nm diameter channels with 1.6 μm pitch illustrates the reproducibility of this approach and the potential for writing periodic structures. We also report proof-of-principle machining of a through-channel of 400 nm diameter in a 43 μm thick membrane. These results represent a significant advance of femtosecond laser ablation technology into the nanometric regime

We generate arbitrary convex accelerating beams by direct application of an appropriate spatial phase profile on an incident Gaussian beam. The spatial phase calculation exploits the geometrical properties of optical caustics and the Legendre transform. Using this technique, accelerating sheet caustic beams with parabolic profiles (i.e. Airy beams), as well as quartic and logarithmic profiles are experimentally synthesized from an incident Gaussian beam, and we show compatibility with material processing applications using an imaging system to reduce the main intensity lobe at the caustic to sub-10 micron transverse dimension. By applying additional and rotational spatial phase, we generate caustic-bounded sheet and volume beams, which both show evidence of the recently predicted effect of abrupt autofocussing. In addition, an engineered accelerating profile with femtosecond pulses is applied to generate a curved zone of refractive index modification in glass. These latter results provide proof of principle demonstration of how this technique may yield new degrees of freedom in both nonlinear optics and femtosecond micromachining.

International audienceWe report femtosecond laser micromachining of micron-size curved structures using tailored accelerating beams. We report surface curvatures as small as 70 μm in both diamond and silicon, which demonstrates the wide applicability of the technique to materials that are optically transparent or opaque at the pump laser wavelength. We also report the machining of curved trenches in silicon. Our results are consistent with an ablation-threshold model based on calculated local beam intensity, and we also observe asymmetric debris deposition which is interpreted in terms of the optical properties of the incident accelerating beam

We report on the experimental demonstration of a hybrid optoelectronic neuromorphic computer based on a complex nonlinear wavelength dynamics including multiple delayed feedbacks with randomly defined weights. This neuromorphic approach is based on a new paradigm of a brain-inspired computational unit, intrinsically differing from Turing machines. This recent paradigm consists in expanding the input information to be processed into a higher dimensional phase space, through the nonlinear transient response of a complex dynamics excited by the input information. The computed output is then extracted via a linear separation of the transient trajectory in the complex phase space. The hyperplane separation is derived from a learning phase consisting of the resolution of a regression problem. The processing capability originates from the nonlinear transient, resulting in nonlinear transient computing. The computational performance is successfully evaluated on a standard benchmark test, namely, a spoken digit recognition task.

The response of a nonlinear optical oscillator subject to a delayed broadband bandpass filtering feedback is studied experimentally, numerically, and analytically. The oscillator loop is characterized by a high cutoff frequency with a response time ϳ 10 ps and by a low cutoff frequency with a response time ϳ 1 s. Moreover, the optoelectronic feedback also consists of a significant delay D of the order of 100 ns. Depending on two key physical parameters, the loop gain ␤ and the nonlinearity operating point ⌽, a large variety of multiple time scale regimes are reported, including slow or fast periodic oscillations with different waveforms, regular or chaotic breathers, slow time envelope dynamics, complex and irregular self-pulsing, and fully developed chaos. Many of these regimes are exhibiting new features that are absent in the classical first-order scalar nonlinear delay differential equations ͑DDEs͒, which differ in the modeling by the low cutoff only. Nearly all kinds of solutions are recovered numerically by a new class of integro-DDE ͑iDDE͒ that take into account both the high and low cutoff frequencies of the feedback loop. For moderate feedback gain, asymptotic solutions are determined analytically by taking advantage of the relative values of the time constants , , and D . We confirm the experimental observation of two distinct routes to oscillatory instabilities depending on the value of ⌽. One route is reminiscent of the square wave oscillations of the classical first-order DDE, but the other route is quite different and allows richer wave forms. For higher feedback gain, these two distinct regimes merge leading to complex nonperiodic regimes that still need to be explored analytically and numerically. Finally, we investigate the theoretical limits of our iDDE model by experimentally exploring phenomena at extreme physical parameter setting, namely, high-frequency locking at strong feedback gain or pulse packages for very large delays. The large variety of oscillatory regimes of our broadband bandpass delay electrooptic oscillator is attractive for applications requiring rich optical pulse sources with different frequencies and/or wave forms ͑chaos-based communications, random number generation, chaos computing, and generation of stable multiple GHz frequency oscillations͒.

We present a systematic study of femtosecond laser microchannel machining in glass using nondiffracting Bessel beams. In particular, our results identify a source and focusing parameter working window where high aspect ratio taper-free microchannels can be reproducibly produced without sample translation. With appropriate source parameters, we machine channels of 2 microm diameter and with aspect ratios up to 40. We propose the filamentation stability of the Bessel beam propagation as the critical factor underlying the controlled and reproducible results that have been obtained.