Photonic processing systems and methods

A photonic processing system comprising:

• an optical encoder configured to encode an input vector into a first plurality of optical signals;
• a photonic processor configured to:
• receive the first plurality of optical signals, each of the first plurality of signals received by a respective input spatial mode of a plurality of input spatial modes of the photonic processor;
• perform a plurality of operations on the first plurality of optical signals, the plurality of operations implementing a matrix multiplication of the input vector by a matrix;
• and
• output a second plurality of optical signals representing an output vector, each of the second plurality of signals transmitted by a respective output spatial mode of a plurality of output spatial modes of the photonic processor;
• and
• an optical receiver configured to detect the second plurality of optical signals and output an electrical digital representation of the output vector;
• wherein the matrix is a first matrix and the photonic processing device further comprises a controller configured to control the photonic processing device to perform multiplication of a second matrix by the first matrix by:
• (a) determining a plurality of input vectors from each column of the second matrix;
• (b) selecting an input vector from the plurality of input vectors;
• (c) encoding the selected input vector into the first plurality of optical signals using the optical encoder;
• (d) performing the plurality of operations on the first plurality of optical signals associated with the first input vector;
• (e) detecting the second plurality of optical signals associated with the selected input vector;
• (f) storing digital detection results based on the detected second plurality of optical signals;
• (g) repeating acts (b)-(f) for the other input vectors of the plurality of input vectors;
• and
• (h) digitally combine the digital detection results to determine a resulting matrix resulting from the multiplication of the second matrix by the first matrix.

A method of optically performing matrix-vector multiplication, the method comprising:

• receiving a digital representation of an input vector;
• encoding, using an optical encoder, the input vector into a first plurality of optical signals;
• performing, using a processor, a singular value decomposition (SVD) of a matrix to determine a first, second, and third SVD matrix;
• controlling a photonic processor comprising a plurality of variable beam splitters (VBS) to optically implement the first, second, and third SVD matrix;
• propagating the first plurality of optical signals through the photonic processor;
• detecting a second plurality of optical signals received from the photonic processor;
• and
• determining an output vector based on the detected second plurality of optical signals, wherein the output vector represents a result of the matrix-vector multiplication,
• wherein encoding the input vector comprises:
• encoding an absolute value of a vector component of the input vector into an amplitude of a respective optical signal of the first plurality of optical signals;
• and
• encoding a phase of the vector component of the input vector into a phase of the respective optical signal of the first plurality of optical signals.

A method of optically performing matrix-vector multiplication, the method comprising:

• receiving a digital representation of an input vector;
• encoding, using an optical encoder, the input vector into a first plurality of optical signals;
• performing, using a processor, a singular value decomposition (SVD) of a matrix to determine a first, second, and third SVD matrix;
• controlling a photonic processor comprising a plurality of variable beam splitters (VBS) to optically implement the first, second, and third SVD matrix;
• propagating the first plurality of optical signals through the photonic processor;
• detecting a second plurality of optical signals received from the photonic processor;
• and
• determining an output vector based on the detected second plurality of optical signals, wherein the output vector represents a result of the matrix-vector multiplication;
• wherein the matrix-vector multiplication is one of a plurality of matrix-vector multiplications performed to perform matrix-matrix multiplication, wherein the matrix is a first matrix and the matrix-matrix multiplication comprises multiplication of a second matrix by the first matrix by, the method further comprising:
• (a) determining a plurality of input vectors from each column of the second matrix;
• (b) selecting an input vector from the plurality of input vectors;
• (c) encoding the selected input vector into the first plurality of optical signals using the optical encoder;
• (d) performing the plurality of operations on the first plurality of optical signals associated with the first input vector;
• (e) detecting the second plurality of optical signals associated with the selected input vector;
• (f) storing digital detection results based on the detected second plurality of optical signals;
• (g) repeating acts (b)-(f) for the other input vectors of the plurality of input vectors;
• and
• (h) digitally combine the digital detection results to determine a resulting matrix resulting from the multiplication of the second matrix by the first matrix.