All‐Optical Logic Gates and Programmable Photonic Organo‐Polymer Devices
Coral Raz, Alexandra Inberg, Amir Handelman · Advanced Electronic Materials · 2025
Abstract Programmable photonic circuits (PPCs) are recognized as building blocks for photonic neuromorphic devices and reconfigurable photonic neural networks (PNNs). While traditional PPCs are primarily made of inorganic materials, polymeric materials offer advantages such as mechanical flexibility and a rapid fabrication process at low cost. Here, we demonstrate a fully polymeric PPC constructed only from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) doped with the organic dye Rhodamine123. We initially fabricated a Y‐shaped all‐optical logic gate from PDMS and demonstrated its functionality as both an OR and NAND gate. Following this, we fabricated three distinct shapes of PDMS photonic structures and evaluated their performance by injecting amplitude‐modulated optical signals of varying wavelengths and measuring their resulting output signals. By doping one of the PDMS structures (in the shape of a hexagonal mesh) with Rhodamine123 at specific locations and heating the entire structure, we managed to control the intensities of the output optical signals, indicating that temperature serves as a programmable parameter that may regulate the ‘weights’ in a polymer‐organic PNN device. This dual control via doping concentration and temperature introduces a novel method for PPCs made of organic materials. Our findings suggest a promising route toward flexible, low‐cost, and biocompatible photonic neuromorphic hardware leveraging polymer‐organic platforms.