# Modeling and benchmarking quantum optical neurons for efficient neural computation

## TL;DR

This paper introduces quantum optical neurons that use light-based interference to perform neural computations efficiently and evaluates their performance in different configurations.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a family of quantum optical neuron architectures with different photon modulation strategies and evaluates their performance in neural networks.

## Key findings

- MZ-based neurons show consistent stability and robustness even under noise conditions.
- HOM amplitude modulation performs competitively in deeper architectures, approaching classical performance.
- Phase- and intensity-modulated HOM variants are less stable and more sensitive to perturbations.

## Abstract

Quantum optical neurons (QONs) are emerging as promising computational units that leverage photonic interference to perform neural operations in an energy-efficient and physically grounded manner. Building on recent theoretical proposals, we introduce a family of QON architectures based on Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) and Mach–Zehnder (MZ) interferometers, incorporating different photon modulation strategies—phase, amplitude, and intensity. These physical setups yield distinct pre-activation functions, which we implement as fully differentiable software modules. We evaluate these QONs both in isolation and as building blocks of multilayer networks, training them on binary and multiclass image classification tasks using the MNIST and FashionMNIST datasets. Each experiment is repeated over five independent runs and assessed under both ideal and non-ideal conditions to measure accuracy, convergence, and robustness. Across settings, MZ-based neurons exhibit consistently stable behavior—including under noise—while HOM amplitude modulation performs competitively in deeper architectures, in several cases approaching classical performance. In contrast, phase- and intensity-modulated HOM-based variants show reduced stability and greater sensitivity to perturbations. These results highlight the potential of QONs as efficient and scalable components for future quantum-inspired neural architectures and hybrid photonic–electronic systems. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/gvessio/quantum-optical-neurons.