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arXiv · 2601.01399

Quaternion optical computing chip for parallel high-dimensional data processing

Songyue Liu·Qi Lu·Yuan Zhong·Yuru Li·Meng Xiang·Zhaohui Li·Chao Lu·Yikai Su·Lu Sun
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Abstract

Optical computing chips have emerged as a transformative computing technology due to their high computational density, low energy consumption, and compact footprint. While real- and complex-valued computing chips have been well developed, their fundamental limitations in representing high-dimensional data significantly constrain their applicability in modern signal processing. Quaternions enable direct operations on three- and four-dimensional data, powering high-dimensional processing in data analytics and artificial intelligence. Here we demonstrate a quaternion optical computing chip (QOCC) for the first time and benchmark its performance in several typical application scenarios: three-dimensional point cloud processing, RGB chromatic transformation, and quaternion convolutional neural network for color image recognition. The QOCC harnesses high parallelism of light by wavelength-division multiplexing, processing high-dimensional data simultaneously through multiple optical wavelength channels. Compared to the electronic computing counterpart, our QOCC achieves higher computational fidelity (root mean square error < 0.035) and substantially reduced computational load (2/3 lower). It paves the way towards next-generation optical computing, overcoming the limitations of traditional computing systems in high-dimensional data processing.

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Songyue Liu, Qi Lu, Yuan Zhong, Yuru Li, Meng Xiang, Zhaohui Li, Chao Lu, Yikai Su, Lu Sun. 2026-01-04. Quaternion optical computing chip for parallel high-dimensional data processing. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.01399

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