Skip to main content
Fig. 7 | PhotoniX

Fig. 7

From: Perspective on photonic memristive neuromorphic computing

Fig. 7

a Schematic of the photonic synapse. The synapse optically connects the presynaptic (pre-neuron) and the postsynaptic (post-neuron) signals and it consists in a tapered waveguide (blue) with discrete PCM islands on top (yellow). The red open circle is a circulator with port 1 receiving the weighting in input, and port 2 and port 3 connecting the synapse and the post-neuron. b Optical microscope image of a device with the active region (red box) as the photonic synapse. Inset: A typical photonic chip containing 70 photonic synapses has a dimension smaller than a 5-pence coin. c Scanning electron microscope image of the active region of the photonic synapse corresponding to the red box in (b) with six GST units (1 μm × 3 μm, yellow, false-coloured) on top of the waveguide (blue, false-coloured). Inset: The zoomed-in tapered structure of the waveguide highlighted by the white dashed box. d Schematic of the all-optical method using a photonic synapse to achieve the STDP plasticity. Reproduced from ref. [70] with permission

Back to article page