Nanophotonic Media for Artificial Neural Inference

Abstract

We show optical waves passing through a nanophotonic medium can perform artificial neural computing. Complex information, is encoded in the wave front of an input light. The medium transforms the wave front to realize sophisticated computing tasks such as image recognition. At the output, the optical energy is concentrated to well-defined locations, which for example can be interpreted as the identity of the object in the image. These computing media can be as small as tens of wavelengths and offer ultra-high computing density. They exploit sub-wavelength scatterers to realize complex input output mapping beyond the capabilities of traditional nanophotonic devices.