Photonic reservoir computing with a silica microsphere cavity

We experimentally demonstrate a photonic reservoir computing (RC) system using a passive silica microsphere cavity. The microsphere cavity exhibits a consistent nonlinear response to the non-return-to-zero signal and the multiple-level signal due to strong interference between numerous whispering gallery modes in the “over-coupling” state. Benefiting from the fact that the long photon lifetime inside the microsphere cavity provides a memory of past inputs, this photonic reservoir does not require a delayed feedback loop. We evaluate the generalization property of the RC system and obtain a correlation coefficient of 0.923. In addition, we obtain a NMSE of 0.06 for the Santa-Fe chaotic time series prediction task and a SER of 0.02 at a SNR of 12 dB for the nonlinear channel equalization task. Moreover, a microsphere cavity with a higher quality factor can provide a larger memory capacity. The application of the silica microsphere cavity as a small-volume passive device in a reservoir furnishes a new avenue for achieving a low-consumption and integrated RC system.