Optical neuromorphic computing via temporal up-sampling and trainable encoding on a telecom device platform

Mapping input signals to a high-dimensional space is a critical concept in various neuromorphic computing paradigms, including models such as reservoir computing (RC) and extreme learning machines (ELM). We propose using commercially available telecom devices and technologies developed for high-speed optical data transmission to implement these models through nonlinear mapping of optical signals into a high-dimensional space where linear processing can be applied. We manipulate the output feature dimension by applying temporal up-sampling (at the speed of commercially available telecom devices) of input signals and a well-established wave-division-multiplexing (WDM). Our up-sampling approach utilizes a trainable encoding mask, where each input symbol is replaced with a structured sequence of masked symbols, effectively increasing the representational capacity of the feature space. This gives remarkable flexibility in the dynamical phase masking of the input signal. We demonstrate this approach in the context of RC and ELM, employing readily available photonic devices, including a semiconductor optical amplifier and nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI). We investigate how nonlinear mapping provided by these devices can be characterized in terms of the increased controlled separability and predictability of the output state.