Experimental reservoir computing using VCSEL polarization dynamics

We realize an experimental setup of a time-delay reservoir using a VCSEL with optical feedback and optical injection. The VCSEL is operated in the injection-locking regime. This allows us to solve different information processing tasks, such as chaotic time-series prediction with a NMSE of 1.6 x 10(-2) and nonlinear channel equalization with a SER of 1.5 x 10(-2), improving state-of-the-art performance. We also demonstrate experimentally, through a careful statistical analysis, the impact of the VCSEL polarization dynamics on the performance of our architecture. More specifically, we confirm recent theoretical prediction stating that a polarization rotated feedback allows for the enhancement of the calculation performance compared to an isotropic feedback. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement