Low Power Coherent Ising Machine Based on Mechanical Kerr Nonlinearity

Finding a reliable Ising machine for solving nondeterministic polynomial-class problems has attracted great attention in recent years, where an authentic system can be expanded with polynomial-scaled resources to find the ground state Ising Hamiltonian. In this Letter, we propose an extremely low power optomechanical coherent Ising machine based on a new enhanced symmetry breaking mechanism and highly nonlinear mechanical Kerr effect. The mechanical movement of an optomechanical actuator induced by the optical gradient force greatly increases the nonlinearity by a few orders and significantly reduces the power threshold using conventional structures capable of fabrication via photonic integrated circuit platforms. With the simple but strong bifurcation mechanism and remarkably low power requirement, our optomechanical spin model opens a path for chip-scale integration of large-size Ising machine implementations with great stability.

Automated summary

Finding a reliable Ising machine for solving nondeterministic polynomial-class problems has attracted great attention. This research proposes an optomechanical coherent Ising machine with extremely low power consumption. By utilizing a new enhanced symmetry breaking mechanism and highly nonlinear mechanical Kerr effect, the power threshold is significantly reduced. This optomechanical spin model opens the possibility of chip-scale integration for large-size Ising machine implementations.