Photonic Ising Compute Engine with An Optical Phased Array

A photonic processing system comprising:

• an electromagnetic radiation source;
• a photonic processor computing engine device comprising:
• at least one photonic integrated circuit (PIC) comprising:
• an optical phased array (OPA) comprising a plurality of radiating pixels that radiate optical signal beams based on electromagnetic radiation from the electromagnetic radiation source, each of the radiating pixels comprising:
• an optical antenna;
• and
• an optical phase modulator;
• and
• at least one focal plane array (FPA) positioned to receive the optical signal beams transmitted from the plurality of radiating pixels;
• at least one processor in electronic communication with the optical phase modulators and the focal plane array;
• and
• a memory device including instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the system to:
• measure an intensity of the optical signal beams received by a defined portion of the focal plane array (FPA) from the optical phased array (OPA);
• provide a feedback signal to the optical phase modulators based on the measured intensity of the optical signal beams;
• controlling the optical phase modulators of the plurality of radiating pixels to control the phase of the optical signal beams emitted by the plurality of radiating pixels to a condition correlated to a ground energy state;
• and
• retrieving the phases of the optical phase modulators at the condition correlated to the ground energy state.

A computer implemented method of solving computationally hard problems using a photonic processor computing engine device comprising an optical phased array (OPA) and a focal plane array (FPA), the method comprising:

• emitting optical signal beams from a plurality of radiating pixels of the optical phased array (OPA) to the focal plane array (FPA), each of the radiating pixels comprising an optical antenna and an optical phase modulator;
• measuring an intensity of the optical signal beams received by a defined portion of the focal plane array (FPA) from the radiating pixels of the optical phased array (OPA);
• providing a feedback signal to the optical phase modulators based on the measured intensity of the optical signal beams;
• energizing the optical phase modulators of the plurality of radiating pixels to control the phase of the optical signal beams emitted by the plurality of radiating pixels to a condition correlated to a ground energy state;
• and
• retrieving the phases of the optical phase modulators at a predetermined value of the intensity at the focal plane array.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including instructions embodied thereon, wherein the instructions, when executed by at least one processor, cause a photonic processing engine comprising an optical phased array (OPA) and a focal plane array (FPA) to:

• emit optical signal beams from a plurality of radiating pixels of the optical phased array (OPA) to the focal plane array (FPA), each of the radiating pixels comprising an optical antenna and an optical phase modulator;
• measure an intensity of the optical signal beams received by a defined portion of the focal plane array (FPA) from the radiating pixels of the optical phased array (OPA);
• provide a feedback signal to the optical phase modulators based on the measured intensity of the optical signal beams;
• control the optical phase modulators of the plurality of radiating pixels to control the phase of the optical signal beams emitted by the plurality of radiating pixels to a condition that correlates to the ground energy state;
• and
• retrieve the phases of the optical phase modulators at the condition that correlates to the ground energy state.