I don't see any technical reason you couldn't implement a relu in optics. There is a whole area, nonlinear optics (I think you may have intended that when you you said 'simple media?' Well, let me see. https://arxiv.org/abs/2201.03787
Thanks, the papers you quoted seem to describe something with low losses (though i can't find explicit statements to that effect when skimming). I was under the impression that nonlinear optics will have huge losses, because it requires multiphoton interactions (which should usually have low cross sections), so will have to figure out which part of my intuition doesn't hold.
From two years ago: https://opg.optica.org/ol/fulltext.cfm?uri=ol-45-17-4819&id=... but again, this isn't simple media.