Optical Analog Computing: A Field-Based Computational Architecture
Nodes, Networks, and Field Evolution as a Computational Medium
From the essay
This work introduces a foundational architecture for an optical analog computing system in which computation emerges from the controlled evolution of electromagnetic fields. Departing from the discrete, state-based paradigm of digital computing, the proposed system operates on continuous optical fields whose amplitude, phase, wavelength, and spatial structure collectively encode information. The architecture is built around a fundamental primitive— the Node— a heterogeneously integrated resonant photonic cell in which multiple weighted optical inputs interact within a shared nonlinear cavity.
Adapted from PDF pages 1.