Photonics for computing and computing for photonics

The liaison between photonics and computing is a pillar of modern optics and subject of cutting-edge research for more than half a century. As in many scientific disciplines, high-performance computational methods have become essential for describing, designing, interpreting and ultimately predicting an optical system’s behaviour, and today the wide availability of high-performance photonic components is testimony of how computing has boosted the field of photonics. At the same time, photonic architectures offer fascinating possibilities for carrying out computations scaling beyond today’s computing hardware. This establishes an almost uniquely reciprocal relationship between photonics and computing