A two-dimensional mid-infrared optoelectronic retina enabling simultaneous perception and encoding

TLDR

Infrared machine vision is increasingly important, yet current systems are bulky and inefficient compared to the compact, neural architecture of the human retina. We present a retina‑inspired mid‑infrared optoelectronic device based on a two‑dimensional heterostructure that simultaneously perceives and encodes data. The device perceives MIR stimulus intensity and encodes it into a spike train via a rate‑encoding algorithm, assisted by an all‑optical excitation mechanism and a stochastic near‑infrared sampling terminal for neuromorphic computing. It offers a wide dynamic range, high encoding precision, flexible adaptation to MIR intensity, and achieves over 96 % inference accuracy on the MIR MNIST dataset using a trained spiking neural network.

Abstract

Infrared machine vision system for object perception and recognition is becoming increasingly important in the Internet of Things era. However, the current system suffers from bulkiness and inefficiency as compared to the human retina with the intelligent and compact neural architecture. Here, we present a retina-inspired mid-infrared (MIR) optoelectronic device based on a two-dimensional (2D) heterostructure for simultaneous data perception and encoding. A single device can perceive the illumination intensity of a MIR stimulus signal, while encoding the intensity into a spike train based on a rate encoding algorithm for subsequent neuromorphic computing with the assistance of an all-optical excitation mechanism, a stochastic near-infrared (NIR) sampling terminal. The device features wide dynamic working range, high encoding precision, and flexible adaption ability to the MIR intensity. Moreover, an inference accuracy more than 96% to MIR MNIST data set encoded by the device is achieved using a trained spiking neural network (SNN).