Controlled propagation of excitatory and inhibitory responses in nano-laser-based neurons

We propose and numerically demonstrate two unidirectionally-coupled nano-laser (NL) neurons allowing for the spiking excitation and inhibition, as well as controlled propagation characteristics. The results demonstrate that controllable and repeatable spiking responses can be achieved by adjusting the perturbation time of an external perturbation signal injected into the first transmitting NL neuron (T-NL). Subsequently, the spiking excitation responses from T-NL can be transmitted to the second receiving NL neuron (R-NL), which then emits identical spiking responses. Similarly, under appropriate external stimuli, the spiking dynamics generated by T-NL can be suppressed, and this inhibitory behavior can be propagated to R-NL. These behaviors are analogous to those of neurons in the brain, but at sub-nanosecond speeds. More importantly, we successfully achieve stable transmission of spiking excitation and inhibition between the two NLs-based neurons. Furthermore, given the small size and easy integration of NLs, we explore the unwanted feedback effect in the system, examining the effects of feedback strength and frequency detuning on NL neuron output. Our results indicate that NLs can effectively simulate the behavior of biological neurons under proper feedback strength, highlighting the potential for NLsbased neuron networks in neural morphological computing platforms.