Inhibitory and excitatory integration with a quantum dot laser neuron

Abstract

Neuromorphic computing has garnered a lot of attention in recent years. Excitable photonic systems in particular demonstrate great potential for ultrafast, controllable spike processing. Optically injected quantum dot lasers display several distinct excitable regimes. We demonstrate here that optically injected dual-state quantum dot lasers can display the classic leaky integrate-and-fire mechanism where the integration of several sub-threshold perturbations can yield an effective supra-threshold perturbation. Intriguingly, a contrasting integrate-and-inhibit mechanism is demonstrated in this work where the integration of two supra-threshold perturbations yields an effective sub-threshold perturbation similar to the pre-pulse inhibition mechanism of biological neurons. This is the first such mechanism in neuromorphic photonics to the best of our knowledge.