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 one or more photonic inputs of a photonic circuit to receive one or more photonic input signals;
• instruct a first cascaded series of one or more photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the one or more photonic inputs to generate one or more intermediate photonic output signals based on the one or more photonic input signals;
• instruct at least one amplitude thresholder of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of one or more photonic components to generate one or more thresholding photonic signals by saturating one or more amplitudes of a first of the one or more intermediate photonic output signals when the at least one amplitude thresholder operates in a first operating regime;
• and
• instruct a second cascaded series of one or more photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of one or more photonic components and the at least one amplitude thresholder to generate one or more photonic output signals based at least in part on a second of the one or more intermediate photonic output signals and the one or more thresholding photonic signals.

A method comprising:

• receiving, at one or more photonic inputs of a photonic circuit, one or more photonic input signals;
• generating, by a first cascaded series of one or more photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the one or more photonic inputs, one or more intermediate photonic output signals based on the one or more photonic input signals;
• generating, by at least one amplitude thresholder of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of one or more photonic components, one or more thresholding photonic signals by saturating one or more amplitudes of a first of the one or more intermediate photonic output signals when the at least one amplitude thresholder operates in a first operating regime;
• and
• generating, by a second cascaded series of one or more photonic components of the photonic circuit coupled to the first cascaded series of one or more photonic components and the at least one amplitude thresholder, one or more photonic output signals based at least in part on a second of the one or more intermediate photonic output signals and the one or more thresholding photonic signals.