All-Optical Signal Processing

Dear Colleagues,

The recent advent of mass-producible integrated optical components, facilitated by the mature silicon photonic technology, has fueled research in a range of diverse fields. Among them, the interest in all-optical non-classical computing technologies has recently risen, and many demonstrations of photonic accelerators for deep learning and quantum schemes have been proposed to the scientific community. In this context, nonlinear optical components might play a fundamental role as they could allow the implementation of neural activation functions in the optical domain, drastically reducing the power budget of  devices. Stimulated by this context, researchers have been focusing their efforts to the development of new materials and platforms, that can be seamlessly integrated with existing silicon photonic circuits and, at the same time, show advanced functionalities (typically hindered in silicon) such as all-optical neuron spiking, nonlinear activation functions and optical addition, all of them considered to be fundamental to any future implementation of neural accelerator in the optical domain.

The scope of this special issue is ambitious: we would like to invite the most eminent scientists in the field to present their most recent results and advancements within the context presented above. The special issue is set to be an interdisciplinary-oriented collection of results, spanning from the material science to the most advanced concepts in computer science and computational concepts. The expected audience is also very wide, and may composed by researchers interested in this emerging field, or scholars (both from academia and industry) looking for a comprehensive review work that might stimulate new ideas.

Prof. Ilaria Cristiani
Dr. Cosimo Lacava
Guest Editors

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