Universal Neural Network Based Calibration and Control of Programmable Classical and Quantum Photonic Integrated Processors
Efficient calibration and control of programmable photonic integrated circuits are fundamental for scaling quantum and classical optical computing processors. While neural network-based models offer an architecture-agnostic solution, existing approaches suffer from limited learning and generalization capabilities due to the many-to-one mapping problem between sets of control signals and optical responses, and biased training datasets derived from uniform current sampling. In this work, we propose a universal calibration and control framework employing tandem neural networks combined with two novel data generation strategies: architecture-aware sampling based on Haar measure principles, and optimized sampling, a physics-agnostic approach utilizing differential evolution. We experimentally validate these methods on 3x3 and 4x4 coherent MZI meshes, demonstrating that our approach addresses the sampling bias inherent in previous works. When evaluated using random unitary matrices, our solution outperforms standard uniform sampling baselines by ~2 bits of precision. Furthermore, we experimentally extend the application of this framework to coherent detection, achieving precise control over both amplitude and phase, and validate its impact on photonic neural network tasks.