Compact eternal diffractive neural network chip for extreme environments

Artificial intelligence applications in extreme environments place high demands on hardware robustness, power consumption, and speed. Recently, diffractive neural networks have demonstrated superb advantages in high-throughput light-speed reasoning. However, the robustness and lifetime of existing diffractive neural networks cannot be guaranteed, severely limiting their compactness and long-term inference accuracy. Here, we have developed a millimeter-scale and robust bilayer-integrated diffractive neural network chip with virtually unlimited lifetime for optical inference. The two diffractive layers with binary phase modulation were engraved on both sides of a quartz wafer. Optical inference of handwritten digital recognition was demonstrated. The results showed that the chip achieved 82% recognition accuracy for ten types of digits. Moreover, the chip demonstrated high-performance stability at high temperatures. The room-temperature lifetime was estimated to be 1.84×10²³ trillion years. Our chip satisfies the requirements for diffractive neural network hardware with high robustness, making it suitable for use in extreme environments.