Reconfigurability of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) has become increasingly important due to the growing demands for electronic–photonic systems on a chip driven by emerging applications, including neuromorphic computing, quantum information, and microwave photonics. Success in these fields usually requires highly scalable photonic switching units as essential building blocks. Current photonic switches, however, mainly rely on materials with weak, volatile thermo‐optic or electro‐optic modulation effects, resulting in large footprints and high energy consumption. As a promising alternative, chalcogenide phase‐change materials (PCMs) exhibit strong optical modulation in a static, self‐holding fashion, but the scalability of present PCM‐integrated photonic applications is still limited by the poor optical or electrical actuation approaches. Here, with phase transitions actuated by in situ silicon PIN diode heaters, scalable nonvolatile electrically reconfigurable photonic switches using PCM‐clad silicon waveguides and microring resonators are demonstrated. As a result, intrinsically compact and energy‐efficient switching units operated with low driving voltages, near‐zero additional loss, and reversible switching with high endurance are obtained in a complementary metal‐oxide‐semiconductor (CMOS)‐compatible process. This work can potentially enable very large‐scale CMOS‐integrated programmable electronic–photonic systems such as optical neural networks and general‐purpose integrated photonic processors.
Optical phase-change materials have enabled nonvolatile programmability in integrated photonic circuits by leveraging a reversible phase transition between amorphous and crystalline states. To control these materials in a scalable manner on-chip, heating the waveguide itself via electrical currents is an attractive option which has been recently explored using various approaches. Here, we compare the heating efficiency, fabrication variability, and endurance of two promising heater designs which can be easily integrated into silicon waveguides—a resistive microheater using n-doped silicon and one using a silicon p-type/intrinsic/n-type (PIN) junction. Raman thermometry is used to characterize the heating efficiencies of these microheaters, showing that both devices can achieve similar peak temperatures but revealing damage in the PIN devices. Subsequent endurance testing and characterization of both device types provide further insights into the reliability and potential damage mechanisms that can arise in electrically programmable phase-change photonic devices.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10414157
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Optical Materials Express
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 2159-3930
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Article No. 1677
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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