Simulations of a graphene excitable laser for spike processing

We propose and simulate a novel excitable laser employing passively Q-switching with a graphene saturable absorber for spike processing. Our approach combines the picosecond processing and switching capabilities of both linear and nonlinear optical device technologies to integrate both analog and digital optical processing into a single hardware architecture capable of computation without the need for analog-to-digital conversion. We simulate the laser using the Yamada model—a three-dimensional dynamical system of rate equations—and show behavior that is typical of spiking processing algorithms simulated in small circuits of excitable lasers.