Programable optical coupler and methods for beam routing and beam shaping

A method for performing vector-matrix multiplication using a programmable optical coupler, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a beam splitter, an array of a plurality of laser beams distributed along a first axis, wherein the array of a plurality of laser beams distributed along a first axis corresponds with a user-defined input vector;
• splitting, at the beam splitter, each of the plurality of laser beams into a plurality of split laser beams distributed along a second axis, wherein the first axis is substantially perpendicular to the second axis;
• receiving, at a phase correction unit, the plurality of split laser beams of each of said array of a plurality of laser beams;
• applying, at the phase correction unit, a user-defined phase correction, wherein the user-defined phase correction corresponds to a user-defined matrix;
• receiving, at a beam combiner, the phase-corrected split laser beams;
• combining, at the beam combiner, the phase-corrected split laser beams of said array of a plurality of laser beams into a single combined array of a plurality of laser beams distributed along the second axis, wherein the single combined array of a plurality of laser beams distributed along the second axis corresponds to a vector-matrix product of the user-defined matrix and the user-defined input vector.