Single-shot optical neural network
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Analog optical and electronic hardware has emerged as a promising alternative to digital electronics to improve the efficiency of deep neural networks (DNNs). However, previous work has been limited in scalability (input vector length K ≈ 100 elements) or has required nonstandard DNN models and retraining, hindering widespread adoption. Here, we present an analog, CMOS–compatible DNN processor that uses free-space optics to reconfigurably distribute an input vector and optoelectronics for static, updatable weighting and the nonlinearity—with K ≈ 1000 and beyond. We demonstrate single-shot-per-layer classification of the MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, and QuickDraw datasets with standard fully connected DNNs, achieving respective accuracies of 95.6, 83.3, and 79.0% without preprocessing or retraining. We also experimentally determine the fundamental upper bound on throughput (∼0.9 exaMAC/s), set by the maximum optical bandwidth before substantial increase in error. Our combination of wide spectral and spatial bandwidths enables highly efficient computing for next-generation DNNs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".