Conditions for reservoir computing performance using semiconductor lasers with delayed optical feedback

Photonic implementations of reservoir computing (RC) have been receiving considerable attention due to their excellent performance, hardware, and energy efficiency as well as their speed. Here, we study a particularly attractive all-optical system using optical information injection into a semiconductor laser with delayed feedback. We connect its injection locking, consistency, and memory properties to the RC performance in a non-linear prediction task. We find that for partial injection locking we achieve a good combination of consistency and memory. Therefore, we are able to provide a physical basis identifying operational parameters suitable for prediction. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America