Photonic Advantage of Optical Encoders

Understand

Light's ability to perform massive linear operations parallelly has recently inspired numerous demonstrations of optics-assisted artificial neural networks (ANN).

• However, a clear advantage of optics over purely digital ANN in a system-level has not yet been established.
• While linear operations can indeed be optically performed very efficiently, the lack of nonlinearity and signal regeneration require high-power, low-latency signal transduction between optics and electronics.
• Additionally, a large power is needed for the lasers and photodetectors, which are often neglected in the calculation of energy consumption.