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arXiv · 2609.21331

Metasurface-integrated VCSEL designed for polarization control in optical Ising machines

Wenjie Chen·Zifeng Yuan·Hong-Lin Lin·Luo Qi·Jiaru Chu·Aaron Danner·Yuhang Chen
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Abstract

The orthogonal polarization states of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) can be used to describe candidate solutions to the Ising Hamiltonian, which is useful for solving quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problems. However, the natural anisotropy of VCSELs tends to overly favor one polarization state, which impedes the system from working as desired. In this work, we have designed and fabricated a metasurface, which may lead to a VCSEL with reduced undesired anisotropy. By changing the geometric size of nano-structures in the metasurface, the polarization state of the output light can be altered. Based on the injection-locking theory and spin-flip model, we numerically show that VCSELs with lowered anisotropy are more easily affected by the injection locking needed in Ising systems. Additionally, we numerically study the evolution of a 3-bit VCSEL-based Ising system and verify that the computational accuracy of the photonic Ising machine can be improved to more than twice that of its counterpart with higher anisotropy.

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Wenjie Chen, Zifeng Yuan, Hong-Lin Lin, Luo Qi, Jiaru Chu, Aaron Danner, Yuhang Chen. 2026-09-18. Metasurface-integrated VCSEL designed for polarization control in optical Ising machines. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21331

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