  The marriage of two vibrant fields---photonics and neuromorphic
processing---is fundamentally enabled by the strong analogies within the
underlying physics between the dynamics of biological neurons and lasers, both
of which can be understood within the framework of nonlinear dynamical systems
theory. Whereas neuromorphic engineering exploits the biophysics of neuronal
computation algorithms to provide a wide range of computing and signal
processing applications, photonics offer an alternative approach to
neuromorphic systems by exploiting the high speed, high bandwidth, and low
crosstalk available to photonic interconnects which potentially grants the
capacity for complex, ultrafast categorization and decision-making. Here we
highlight some recent progress on this exciting field.
