Strain-mediated reservoir computing with temporal and spatial co-multiplexing in multiferroic heterostructures

Physical reservoir computing (PRC), a brain-inspired computing method known for its efficient information processing and low training requirements, has attracted significant attention. The key factor lies in the number of computational nodes within the reservoir for its computational capability. Here, we explore co-multiplexing reservoirs that leverage both temporal and spatial strategies. Temporal multiplexing virtually expands the node count through the use of masking techniques, while spatial multiplexing utilizes multiple physical locations (e.g., Hall bars) to achieve an increase in the number of real nodes. Our experiment employs a strain-mediated reservoir based on multiferroic heterostructures. By applying a single voltage across the PMN-PT substrate (acting as global input) and measuring the output Hall voltages from four Hall bars (real nodes), we achieve significant efficiency gains. This co-multiplexing approach results in a reduction in the normalized root mean square error from 0.5 to 0.23 for a 20-step prediction task of a Mackey–Glass chaotic time series. Furthermore, the single input and four independent outputs lead to a fourfold reduction in energy consumption compared to the strain-mediated PRC with temporal multiplexing solely. This research paves the way for future energy saving PRC implementations utilizing co-multiplexing, promoting a resource-efficient paradigm in reservoir computing.