Demonstration of a distributed feedback laser diode working as a graded-potential-signaling photonic neuron and its application to neuromorphic information processing

We find that a commonly-used distributed feedback laser diode (DFB-LD) can work as a graded-potential-signaling photonic neuron. Through theoretical and experimental demonstration, DFB-LDs are proved useful for three graded-potential-signaling-based neuromorphic processing applications of the pattern recognition, the single-wavelength implementation of spike timing dependent plasticity (STDP), and the sound azimuth measurement. The pattern recognition with a full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of 1 mu s is realized in the experiment.