Perturbation-resilient integer arithmetic using optical skyrmions

The decline of Moore's law coupled with the rise of artificial intelligence has recently motivated research into photonic computing as a high-bandwidth, low-power strategy to accelerate digital electronics. However, many modern-day photonic computing strategies are analog, making them susceptible to noise and intrinsically difficult to scale. Optical skyrmions offer a route to overcoming these limitations through digitization in the form of a discrete topological number that can be assigned to the analog optical field. Apart from an intrinsic robustness against perturbations, optical skyrmions represent a new medium that has yet to be fully exploited for photonic computing, namely spatially varying polarization. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a method for performing perturbation-resilient integer arithmetic with optical skyrmions and passive optical components. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such discrete mathematical operations have been directly achieved using optical skyrmions without external energy input.