The traditional ways of tuning a Silicon photonic network are mainly based on the thermal-optic effect or the free carrier effect of silicon. The drawbacks of these methods are the volatile nature and the extremely small change in the complex refractive index (Δn<0.01). In order to achieve low energy consumption and smaller footprint for applications such as photonic memories or computing, it is essential that the two optical states of the system exhibit high optical contrast and remain non-volatile. Phase change materials (PCMs) such as GST provide a solution in that it exhibits drastic contrast in refractive index between the two non-volatile crystallographic states which can be switched reversibly. Here, we first show that GST can be integrated with a Si ring resonator to demonstrate a quasi-continuous optical switch with extinction ratio as high as 33dB. Secondly, we demonstrated GST-integrated 1×2 and 2×2 Si photonic switches using a three-waveguide coupler design which exhibits a low insertion loss of ~1dB and a compact coupling length of ~30μm. The crosstalk is as small as -10dB over a bandwidth of 30nm. Lastly, we explore the potential of two emerging PCMs Sb2S3 and GeSe for extreme low loss operation of reconfigurable photonic integrated circuit (PIC).
The traditional ways of tuning a Silicon photonic network are mainly based on the thermal-optic effect or the free carrier effect of silicon. The drawbacks of these methods are the volatile nature and the extremely small change in the complex refractive index (Δn<0.01). In order to achieve low energy consumption and smaller footprint for applications such as photonic memories or computing, it is essential that the two optical states of the system exhibit high optical contrast and remain non-volatile. Phase change materials such as GST provide a solution in that it exhibits drastic contrast in refractive index between the two non-volatile crystallographic states which can be switched reversibly. Here, we first show that GST can be integrated with a Si ring resonator to demonstrate a quasi-continuous optical switch with extinction ratio as high as 33dB. Secondly, we demonstrated GST-integrated 1×2 and 2×2 Si photonic switches using a three-waveguide coupler design which exhibits a low insertion loss of ~1dB and a compact coupling length of ~30μm. The crosstalk is as small as -10dB over a bandwidth of 30nm.
Optical phase change materials (O-PCMs) are a unique class of materials which exhibit extraordinarily large optical property change (e.g. refractive index change > 1) when undergoing a solid-state phase transition. These materials, exemplified by Mott insulators such as VO2 and chalcogenide compounds, have been exploited for a plethora of emerging applications including optical switching, photonic memories, reconfigurable metasurfaces, and non-volatile display. These traditional phase change materials, however, generally suffer from large optical losses even in their dielectric states, which fundamentally limits the performance of optical devices based on traditional O-PCMs. In this talk, we will discuss our progress in developing O-PCMs with unprecedented broadband low optical loss and their applications in novel photonic systems, such as high-contrast switches and routers towards a reconfigurable optical chip.
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