Non-Volatile Reconfigurable Integrated Photonics Enabled by Broadband Low-Loss Phase Change Material

Phase change materials (PCMs) have long been used as a storage medium in rewritable compact disk and later in random access memory. In recent years, integration of PCMs with nanophotonic structures has introduced a new paradigm for non-volatile reconfigurable optics. However, the high loss of the archetypal PCM Ge2Sb2Te5 in both visible and telecommunication wavelengths has fundamentally limited its applications. Sb2S3 has recently emerged as a wide-bandgap PCM with transparency windows ranging from 610 nm to near-IR. In this paper, the strong optical phase modulation and low optical loss of Sb2S3 are experimentally demonstrated for the first time in integrated photonic platforms at both 750 and 1550 nm. As opposed to silicon, the thermo-optic coefficient of Sb2S3 is shown to be negative, making the Sb2S3-Si hybrid platform less sensitive to thermal fluctuation. Finally, a Sb2S3 integrated non-volatile microring switch is demonstrated which can be tuned electrically between a high and low transmission state with a contrast over 30 dB. This work experimentally verifies prominent phase modification and low loss of Sb2S3 in wavelength ranges relevant for both solid-state quantum emitter and telecommunication, enabling potential applications such as optical field programmable gate array, post-fabrication trimming, and large-scale integrated quantum photonic network.

Automated summary

This study experimentally demonstrated the strong optical phase modulation and low optical loss of Sb2S3 at wavelengths of 750 nm and 1550 nm, showcasing the thermal stability of the Sb2S3-Si hybrid platform and an electrically tunable Sb2S3 integrated non-volatile microring switch with a high-contrast transmission state over 30 dB.