2018/05/04 by Jeffrey M. Shainline, Shainline, Jeffrey M., Sonia Buckley +10 · 1 voice · 8 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · Neuroscience · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Memory and Neural Computing #Computer science #Condensed matter physics #Materials science #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Neural dynamics and brain function #Optoelectronics #Physics #Superconductivity #cs.ET #cs.NE
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1805.01929
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University) · 10 pages, 1 figure
openalex publication_date 2018/05/04 · arxiv created 2018/05/24 · arxiv updated 2018/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The design of neural hardware is informed by the prominence of differentiated processing and information integration in cognitive systems. The central role of communication leads to the principal assumption of the hardware platform: signals between neurons should be optical to enable fanout and communication with minimal delay. The requirement of energy efficiency leads to the utilization of superconducting detectors to receive single-photon signals. We discuss the potential of superconducting optoelectronic hardware to achieve the spatial and temporal information integration advantageous for cognitive processing, and we consider physical scaling limits based on light-speed communication. We introduce the superconducting optoelectronic neurons and networks that are the subject of the subsequent papers in this series.