Summary

Proceedings of the 2012 International Symposium on Nonlinear Theory and its Applications

2012

Session Number:D1L-A

Session:

Number:767

Towards a photonic spiking neuron: excitability in a silicon-on-insulator microring.

T. Van Vaerenbergh,  M. Fiers,  K. Vandoorne,  B. Schneider,  J. Dambre,  P. Bienstman,  

pp.767-770

Publication Date:

Online ISSN:2188-5079

DOI:10.15248/proc.1.767

PDF download (1.7MB)

For certain input power and wavelength settings, high Q-factor silicon-on-insulator rings self-pulsate. Thereby, they seem suited to emulate the behaviour of spiking neurons on a photonic chip. To gain insight in the possible excitation mechanisms a phase-plane analysis is needed. In this paper, we develop the theory needed to construct such phase portraits for a coupled mode theory description of the microring.
For some wavelengths, when changing the input power, the microring undergoes a subcritical Andronov-Hopf bifurcation at the self-pulsation onset. As a consequence the system is class II excitable.

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