Artificial neural networks are a type of artificial intelligence that uses connected units to process information, similar to the way our brains work. By training the algorithms to categorize inputs, they can perform complex tasks. This type of processing is typically performed with a conventional computer, but significant efforts are under way to design optimized hardware that can increase efficiency. That’s where optics-based devices, which can perform parallel computations while using less energy than electronics, come in.
Researchers at Stanford University have just reported a breakthrough using an optical circuit to train an artificial neural network, which could lead to less expensive, faster and more energy-efficient ways to perform tasks like voice or image recognition.
"This would enhance the capability of artificial neural networks to perform tasks required for self-driving cars or to formulate an appropriate response to a spoken question, for example,” noted research team leader Shanhui Fan. “It could also improve our lives in ways we can't imagine now."
By designing an optical chip that replicates the way that conventional computers train neural networks, the researchers overcame a significant challenge to implementing an all-optical neural network. The new training protocol operates on optical circuits with tunable beam splitters. Laser beams encoding information to be processed are fired into the circuits and carried through the beam splitters by optical waveguides. These can then be adjusted via optical phase shifters, which function like knobs.
The technique was successfully tested with optical simulations in which an algorithm was taught to perform complicated functions, such as picking out complex features within a set of points.
"Our work demonstrates that you can use the laws of physics to implement computer science algorithms," said Fan.
The general approach designed by the team could be used with various neural network architectures, and for other applications such as reconfigurable optics.
The research was reported in Optica, the journal of The Optical Society.
