Abstract
Efficient and accurate decision making is gaining increased importance with the rapid expansion of information communication technologies including artificial intelligence. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an on-chip, integrated photonic decision maker based on a ring laser. The ring laser exhibits spontaneous switching between clockwise and counter-clockwise oscillatory dynamics; we utilize such nature to solve a multi-armed bandit problem. The spontaneous switching dynamics provides efficient exploration to find the accurate decision. On-line decision making is experimentally demonstrated including autonomous adaptation to an uncertain environment. This study paves the way for directly utilizing the fluctuating physics inherent in ring lasers, or integrated photonics technologies in general, for achieving or accelerating intelligent functionality.
Highlights
The numerical simulation was conducted by using a set of dimensionless semiclassical equations for the two slowly varying complex amplitudes of CW and CCW waves, E1 and E
We model internal optical noises as complex Gaussian noise satisfying 〈ηi〉 = 0 and 〈ηi(t)ηj⁎(t′)〉 = 2Dδijδ(t − t′) (i = 1, 2). 〈 ⋅ 〉 represents the ensemble average, and D represents the noise strength
Combination of noise-induced switching with delayed feedback instability indicates a promising research direction
Summary
The ring laser device used in this study was fabricated in a graded-index separate-confinement-heterostructure (GRIN-SCH) single-quantum well GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs structure, the emission wavelength of which is designed to be 850 nm. The fabricated laser device was thermally controlled by a heat-sink with an accuracy of 0.01 °C. The ring radius is 1 mm, and the waveguide width is 2 μm. Multiple waveguides with independent electrical contacts are coupled to the ring with an angle to the cleaved facet. Bias contacts BC1 and BC2 were used for the mode-control inside the ring laser. BC1(2) can enhance the spontaneous emission noise coupled to the CW(CCW) mode, and facilitates the laser operation in the CW(CCW) mode[31,36]
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