Design and Research of Photonic Reservoir Computing for Optical Channel Equalization
Xiaoyan Zuo, Li Pei, Bing Bai, Bowen Bai, Jianshuai Wang, Quan Li, Run Lin Yang · Photonics · 2025
In this paper, photonic reservoir computing chip architectures for noise equalization in optical fiber communication channels are proposed. These architectures leverage optical computing instead of electrical computing to reduce computational pressure at the receiver and decrease processing latency. We examine the impact of factors such as the number of reservoir nodes, waveguide delay line length, and the number of input/output ports on equalization performance. We discuss the equalization ability of these architectures under various types of noise. After parameter optimization, the 36-node reservoir layout achieves a three-orders-of-magnitude reduction in bit error rate for 20 km OOK signals after equalization. Additionally, the chip architecture facilitates easy expansion of the all-optical readout layer, offering the possibility for further increasing the equalization speed.