Plasmonic computing of spatial differentiation

By Tengfeng Zhu, Yihan Zhou, Yijie Lou, H. Ye, M. Qiu, Z. Ruan, Shanhui Fan. Nature Communications, 2017

408 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Optical analog computing offers high-throughput low-power-consumption operation for specialized computational tasks. Traditionally, optical analog computing in the spatial domain uses a bulky system of lenses and filters. Recent developments in metamaterials enable the miniaturization of such computing elements down to a subwavelength scale. However, the required metamaterial consists of a complex array of meta-atoms, and direct demonstration of image processing is challenging. Here, we show that the interference effects associated with surface plasmon excitations at a single metal–dielectric interface can perform spatial differentiation. And we experimentally demonstrate edge detection of an image without any Fourier lens. This work points to a simple yet powerful mechanism for optical analog computing at the nanoscale. For specific problems, analog optical computing can be faster and more computationally efficient than digital methods. Here, Zhuet al. simplify the often metamaterial-based approach to a single thin metal film, with which they demonstrate spatial differentiation.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ded2b555d5e2145810af6073189dd5209a1fd495

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Citations in the corpus

Nonlocal Metasurfaces for Optical Signal Processing. (2018, background): “3 approach [26] was based on the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons at the interface between a dielectric prism and a plasmonic material.”
Roadmap on spatiotemporal light fields (2022, methodology): “For example, based on a simple surface plasmonic structure with a single layer of 50 nm-thick silver, optical spatial differentiation was experimentally demonstrated for image processing of edge detection [151].”
Analogue computing with metamaterials (2020, background): “Panels a–c adapted from reF.(43), CC BY 4.”