Tunable vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with feedback to implement a pulsed neural model 1 Principles and experimental demonstration

Abstract

An optoelectronic implementation of a modified FitzHugh-Nagumo neuron model is proposed, analyzed, and experimentally demonstrated. The setup uses linear optics and linear electronics for implementing an optical wavelength-domain nonlinearity. The system attains instability through a bifurcation mechanism present in a class of neuron models, a fact that is shown analytically. The implementation exhibits basic features of neural dynamics including threshold, production of short pulses (or spikes), and refractoriness.

Controlled inhibition of spiking dynamics in VCSELs for neuromorphic photonics: theory and experiments

“…However, whilst isolated works appeared as early as in year 2000 [7][8][9] it is only recently that the field has exploded and diverse photonic neuronal models have been proposed using semiconductor optical amplifiers [10][11][12], fibre lasers [13][14][15][16], photonic crystal cavities [17,18], laserphotodiode coupled systems [19,20], semiconductor lasers (SLs) [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], etc. Of all these, SL approaches have attracted higher interest, since SLs can undergo behaviours analogous to those of neurons, such as excitability [34][35][36] and complex dynamics [37] [38] but at timescales 7 to 9 orders of magnitude faster.…”

Investigation of vertical cavity surface emitting laser dynamics for neuromorphic photonic systems

“…4 This operated on a timescale which was 10 5 times faster than a biological neuron, offering the exciting prospect of ultrafast neural computations. Recently, optical approaches have also emerged [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] as it is widely recognised that these offer even faster timescales (up to 10 9 times 9 ). However, these are often complex and scaling sufficiently to permit the demonstration of network characteristics is challenging.…”

Analysis of the Spike Rate and Spike Correlations in Modulated Semiconductor Lasers With Optical Feedback

“…As excitable behavior in neurons is known to be intimately related with information processing in the brain [16], the recent years saw many efforts to develop excitable photonic devices that could mimic neuronal activity in information processing networks inspired by biological systems. In particular, semiconductor lasers with optical injection [17]- [21], optical feedback [22]- [25], both [26], or saturated absorbers [27]- [30] have been investigated as possible optical spiking neurons.…”