Cascadable photonic circuit with semiconductor optical amplifier based amplitude thresholder

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising stored instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to:

• instruct a plurality of photonic inputs of a photonic circuit to receive a plurality of photonic input signals;
• instruct a first cascaded series of photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the plurality of photonic inputs to generate a plurality of intermediate photonic output signals based on the plurality of photonic input signals;
• instruct an amplitude thresholder of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of photonic components to generate a saturated photonic signal based on a first of the plurality of intermediate photonic output signals when the amplitude thresholder operates in a single nonlinear region;
• and
• instruct a second cascaded series of photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of photonic components and the amplitude thresholder to generate a photonic output signal based at least in part on a second of the plurality of intermediate photonic output signals and the saturated photonic signal.

A method comprising:

• receiving, at a plurality of photonic inputs of a photonic circuit, a plurality of photonic input signals;
• generating, by a first cascaded series of photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the plurality of photonic inputs, a plurality of intermediate photonic output signals based on the plurality of photonic input signals;
• generating, by an amplitude thresholder of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of photonic components, a saturated photonic signal based on a first of the plurality of intermediate photonic output signals when the amplitude thresholder operates in a single nonlinear region;
• and
• generating, by a second cascaded series of photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of photonic components and the amplitude thresholder, a photonic output signal based at least in part on a second of the plurality of intermediate photonic output signals and the saturated photonic signal.