In Optica, The Optical Society’s journal for high-impact research, researchers from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong detail their two-layer all-optical neural network and successfully apply it to a complex classification task. In conventional hybrid optical neural networks, optical components are typically used for linear operations while nonlinear activation functions — the functions that simulate the way neurons in the human brain respond — are usually implemented electronically because nonlinear optics typically require high-power lasers that are difficult to implement in an optical neural network.
To overcome this challenge, the researchers used cold atoms with electromagnetically induced transparency to perform nonlinear functions. “This light-induced effect can be achieved with very weak laser power,” said Shengwang Du, a member of the research team. “Because this effect is based on nonlinear quantum interference, it might be possible to extend our system into a quantum neural network that could solve problems intractable by classical methods.”
To confirm the capability and feasibility of the new approach, the researchers constructed a two-layer fully-connected all optical neural network with 16 inputs and two outputs. The researchers used their all-optical network to classify the order and disorder phases of the Ising model, a statistical model of magnetism. The results showed that the all-optical neural network was as accurate as a well-trained computer-based neural network.
Source (The Optical Society. “All-optical neural network for deep learning: New approach could enable parallel computation with light.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 August 2019.)
Original article: Zuo, Y., Li, B., Zhao, Y., Jiang, Y., Chen, Y.C., Chen, P., Jo, G.B., Liu, J. and Du, S., 2019. All-optical neural network with nonlinear activation functions. Optica, 6(9), pp.1132-1137.
