Development and evaluation of germanium telluride phase change material based ohmic switches for RF applications

We report on the device structure and performance of germanium telluride phase change material based ohmic RF switches. Two main types of the phase change switches using direct and indirect heating methods have been designed, fabricated and measured to analyze and compare the performance of germanium telluride in RF switch applications. Both types of switches are proven to have an insertion loss of less than 0.6 dB and an isolation of more than 13 dB for up to 20 GHz. Good linearity and power handling capability results are also measured. A reconfigurable bandpass filter using the indirectly heated phase change switch has also been developed, and shows promising performance. Efforts have been made to further analyze the issues with switching reliability, and explore possible ways of improving the performance of phase change RF switches.