A team of UCLA engineers and researchers has developed a new method to shape light pulses by creating physical networks that are composed specially engineered layers. These layers are designed using deep learning and then fabricated using 3-D printing and stacked together, one following another, forming an optical network that is capable of performing various computational tasks using optical waves and diffraction of light. Earlier studies demonstrated all-optical classification and recognition of images using these deep learning-designed diffractive networks.
source https://phys.org/news/2021-01-optical-network-pulses.html