Optical Spiking Neural Networks via Rogue-Wave Statistics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kesgin, Bahadır Utku, Durdu, Gülsüm Yaren, Teğin, Uğur
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kesgin, Bahadır Utku
Durdu, Gülsüm Yaren
Teğin, Uğur
author_facet Kesgin, Bahadır Utku
Durdu, Gülsüm Yaren
Teğin, Uğur
contents Optical computing could reduce the energy cost of artificial intelligence by leveraging the parallelism and propagation speed of light. However, implementing nonlinear activation, essential for machine learning, remains challenging in low-power optical systems dominated by linear wave physics. Here, we introduce an optical spiking neural network that uses optical rogue-wave statistics as a programmable firing mechanism. By establishing a homomorphism between free-space diffraction and neuronal integration, we demonstrate that phase-engineered caustics enable robust, passive thresholding: sparse spatial spikes emerge when the local intensity exceeds a significant-intensity rogue-wave criterion. Using a physics-informed digital twin, we optimize granular phase masks to deterministically concentrate energy into targeted detector regions, enabling end-to-end co-design of the optical transformation and a lightweight electronic readout. We experimentally validate the approach on BreastMNIST and Olivetti Faces, achieving accuracies of 82.45\% and 95.00\%, respectively, competitive with standard digital baselines. These results demonstrate that extreme-wave phenomena, often treated as deleterious fluctuations, can be harnessed as structural nonlinearity for scalable, energy-efficient neuromorphic photonic inference.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_24983
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optical Spiking Neural Networks via Rogue-Wave Statistics
Kesgin, Bahadır Utku
Durdu, Gülsüm Yaren
Teğin, Uğur
Optics
Optical computing could reduce the energy cost of artificial intelligence by leveraging the parallelism and propagation speed of light. However, implementing nonlinear activation, essential for machine learning, remains challenging in low-power optical systems dominated by linear wave physics. Here, we introduce an optical spiking neural network that uses optical rogue-wave statistics as a programmable firing mechanism. By establishing a homomorphism between free-space diffraction and neuronal integration, we demonstrate that phase-engineered caustics enable robust, passive thresholding: sparse spatial spikes emerge when the local intensity exceeds a significant-intensity rogue-wave criterion. Using a physics-informed digital twin, we optimize granular phase masks to deterministically concentrate energy into targeted detector regions, enabling end-to-end co-design of the optical transformation and a lightweight electronic readout. We experimentally validate the approach on BreastMNIST and Olivetti Faces, achieving accuracies of 82.45\% and 95.00\%, respectively, competitive with standard digital baselines. These results demonstrate that extreme-wave phenomena, often treated as deleterious fluctuations, can be harnessed as structural nonlinearity for scalable, energy-efficient neuromorphic photonic inference.
title Optical Spiking Neural Networks via Rogue-Wave Statistics
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.24983