Department of Physics, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, Lee Maltings, Dyke Parade, Cork, Ireland.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 21;7(1):8414. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-08751-y.
Neurons communicate by brief bursts of spikes separated by silent phases and information may be encoded into the burst duration or through the structure of the interspike intervals. Inspired by the importance of bursting activities in neuronal computation, we have investigated the bursting oscillations of an optically injected quantum dot laser. We find experimentally that the laser periodically switches between two distinct operating states with distinct optical frequencies exhibiting either fast oscillatory or nearly steady state evolutions (two-color bursting oscillations). The conditions for their emergence and their control are analyzed by systematic simulations of the laser rate equations. By projecting the bursting solution onto the bifurcation diagram of a fast subsystem, we show how a specific hysteresis phenomenon explains the transitions between active and silent phases. Since size-controlled bursts can contain more information content than single spikes our results open the way to new forms of neuron inspired optical communication.
神经元通过短暂的尖峰爆发来进行通讯，爆发之间是沉默的相位，信息可以编码到爆发持续时间中，或者通过尖峰间隔的结构来编码。受爆发活动在神经元计算中的重要性启发，我们研究了光注入量子点激光的爆发振荡。我们实验发现，激光周期性地在两个具有不同光学频率的不同工作状态之间切换，表现出快速振荡或几乎稳态的演化（双色爆发振荡）。通过对激光速率方程的系统模拟，分析了它们出现的条件及其控制。通过将爆发解映射到快子系统的分岔图上，我们展示了特定的滞后现象如何解释活跃相和沉默相之间的转变。由于尺寸控制的爆发可以包含比单个尖峰更多的信息内容，因此我们的结果为新形式的受神经元启发的光学通信开辟了道路。
