Formation of a neuron-like pulsed response in a semiconductor resonator cavity with competing optical nonlinearities

Leaky Integrate‐and‐Fire Mechanism in Exciton–Polariton Condensates for Photonic Spiking Neurons

“…One of the first reports pointed to neuron-like pulse generation in a semiconductor resonator cavity with pump perturbation. [22] Later the excitability of semiconductor lasers has been often discussed in the context of neuronal excitability (the fundamental property of a biological neuron to spike in response to a strong enough stimulus). [23][24][25] The turning point came after the first demonstration of a fiber-based ultrafast Leaky-Integrateand-Fire (LIF) neuron, a class of IF.…”

Regenerative pulsations in semiconductor etalon due to competition between carrier generation and heating effects on band filling

“…Note that a considerable difference in the relaxation rates of the competing ONs, resulting in a splitting of the fast and slow stages in the dynamics of the nonlinear system, is a general condition for a discussed kind of regenerative pulsations. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] In the fast stage, the response of the semiconductor etalon is determined only by the effective electron temperature T e which, computed as a function of the intensity of the incident light, I i , is shown in Fig. 3͑a͒.…”

“…1 Although this is quite a common phenomenon, not restricted by any particular type of device nor mechanism of ON, most foregoing studies, [2][3][4][5][6][7] including ours, [4][5][6][7] refer to a semiconductor etalon with electronic and thermal dispersive nonlinearities. In that case, carrier concentration, due to band filling in a narrow band gap semiconductor like InSb [3][4][5][6][7] or weakening of free-exciton resonance in a wide band gap semiconductor like GaAs, 2 and lattice temperature both effect the near absorption edge refractive index, but in opposite manners. The former plays the role of the fast variable responsible for optical bistability, while slow variation of the latter prevents either state from being stable, that ultimately results in the regenerative oscillations.…”

“…An ability of such a system to selfpulsate has been shown experimentally, 2,3 in particular, monostable pulse generation and multiple oscillatory mode regime in a stationary pumped InSb etalon have been observed. 6,7 The characteristic frequency of the regenerative oscillations, limited by a relaxation of the slower variable, in a semiconductor etalon with the competing electronic and thermal nonlinearities, is determined by the lattice cooling time and usually lies in a range below 1 MHz. In fact, these are too low frequencies for application in all-optical clock systems, 8 pulse generators, 9 etc.…”