CUHK Team Fabricates 4 Million 500-nm Optical Neurons in 15 Minutes, Reaching 99% Accuracy
Updated
Updated · Newswise · Jul 17
CUHK Team Fabricates 4 Million 500-nm Optical Neurons in 15 Minutes, Reaching 99% Accuracy
3 articles · Updated · Newswise · Jul 17
Summary
A CUHK-led team built four million 500-nm optical neurons on a millimeter-scale chip in 15 minutes using a randomized multi-focus two-photon lithography platform.
The system uses holographic light-field control for parallel scanning, tackling a key bottleneck for visible-wavelength optical neural networks that need millions of wavelength-scale neurons.
Tests delivered 97% to 99% classification accuracy in hand-drawn figure recognition, human action recognition and face keypoint detection, using a digital readout layer with as few as 1,000 weights.
The researchers said the 3D-printed diffractive layer acts as a task-agnostic optical encoder, allowing new tasks to be handled by retraining only the lightweight digital layer.
Unlike slower, costlier conventional lithography, the method is designed for UV nanoimprinting and tiled writing, opening a path to mass-produced optical vision processors for LiDAR, biomedical diagnostics and human-computer interaction.
With this record-setting optical chip, is China positioned to dominate the next generation of AI hardware?
A 15-minute print creates a brain-like chip. Is this the end for traditional silicon manufacturing?
As optical AI promises near-zero power use, how will it reshape our energy-hungry digital world?
Record-Breaking 10,000 Neurons/mm² Optical Neural Networks: China’s Leap in Fast, Scalable AI Chip Manufacturing
Overview
On July 17, 2026, Chinese researchers announced a major breakthrough in optical neural network (ONN) technology by unveiling a rapid fabrication method for high-density ONNs, published in 'Nature Photonics'. This development marks a pivotal moment for optical computing, as it addresses long-standing challenges in scaling up ONN fabrication and integration. The new technique enables the creation of ONNs with an unprecedented neuron density, paving the way for more energy-efficient and high-speed AI hardware. This achievement is set to accelerate advancements in artificial intelligence by making large-scale, powerful optical computing systems more practical and accessible.