Noise effects on time delay reservoir computing using silicon microring resonators

Time-delay Reservoir Computing has gained considerable interest in the last years thanks to the hardware simplicity that it requires. We recently proposed a photonic hardware implementation where a single silicon microring resonator subject to optical feedback is the fundamental processing unit. Several processing schemes are possible for this system, including the one with only the microring resonator in absence of feedback. This last configuration, is based on the role of the microring resonator nonlinearities, that also act as memory source for the system, allowing to solve memory demanding tasks such as the Santa Fe benchmark task. Here we highlight the effects of noise applied directly on the output optical signal of the single microring resonator while solving the Santa Fe task. Correlations between the degree of microring resonator nonlinearity and noise-robustness are found.

Automated summary

Time-delay Reservoir Computing, implemented using a single silicon microring resonator subject to optical feedback, shows hardware simplicity and is capable of solving memory demanding tasks. Our research reveals the correlation between the nonlinearity of the microring resonator and the robustness to noise.