Nature Physics: reprogrammable refractive index enables arbitrary multimode wave control for ML
MarioKrenn6240 · x · 2026-10-27
- Cornell/Stanford team (Onodera, Wright, McMahon et al.) published in Nature Physics: "Arbitrary control over multimode wave propagation for machine learning."
- They built a photonic device whose refractive index can be rapidly reprogrammed across space, performing computation via multimode interference sculpted in a continuous 2D substrate — instead of discrete components linked by single-mode waveguides — enabling more space-efficient photonic processors with arbitrary control over multimode wave propagation.
- Open access; McMahon notes a related experimental demo appears as Figure 4 of an earlier linked experiment.
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