Optical neural networks (ONNs), enabling low latency and high parallel data processing without electromagnetic interference, have become a viable player for fast and energy-efficient processing and calculation to meet the increasing demand for hash rate. Photonic memories employing nonvolatile phasechange materials could achieve zero static power consumption, low thermal cross talk, large-scale, and high-energy-efficient photonic neural networks. Nevertheless, the switching speed and dynamic energy consumption of phase-change material-based photonic memories make them inapplicable for in situ training. Here, by integrating a patch of phase change thin film with a PIN-diode-embedded microring resonator, a bifunctional photonic memory enabling both 5-bit storage and nanoseconds volatile modulation was demonstrated. For the first time, a concept is presented for electrically programmable phase-change material-driven photonic memory integrated with nanosecond modulation to allow fast in situ training and zero static power consumption data processing in ONNs. ONNs with an optical convolution kernel constructed by our photonic memory theoretically achieved an accuracy of predictions higher than 95% when tested by the MNIST handwritten digit database. This provides a feasible solution to constructing large-scale nonvolatile ONNs with high-speed in situ training capability.

On‐chip micro‐spectrometers are sought after with great effort owing to extensive potential applications in mobile optical sensing and imaging. By multiplexing more physical channels, the reconstructive spectrometers based on the spectral‐to‐spatial mapping technique can improve the spectral range. However, this method is challenging to implement and sustain due to the increase in system complexity and the decrease of dynamic range or spectral resolution. Here, a micro‐spectrometer utilizing a single tunable microdisk resonator (MDR) is demonstrated. Such a single MDR spectrometer has only one physical channel to receive all spectral components with a compact size, overcoming the trade‐off among spectral resolution, spectral range, and dynamic range. Leveraging the wavelength and temperature‐dependent response matrix, unknown spectra are reconstructed from their corresponding output light intensity vector. The fabricated device illustrates a high resolution of 0.01 nm for a dual peak and a medium resolution of 0.2 nm in the 20 nm spectral range. A wide variety of complex input spectra, including narrowband and broadband spectral signals, can be well recovered, exhibiting the robustness of the spectral reconstruction approach. Moreover, this proposed spectrometer exhibits ease of scalability and flexible configuration to a spectrometer array covering a set of desired and even discrete spectral ranges.

Chalcogenide phase change materials (PCMs), featuring a large contrast in optical properties between their non-volatile amorphous and crystalline states, have triggered a surge of interest for their applications in ultra-compact photonic integrated circuits with long-term near-zero power consumption. Over the past decade, however, PCM-integrated photonic devices and networks suffered from the huge optical loss of various commonly-used PCMs themselves. In this paper, we focused on the deposition, characterization, and monolithic integration of an emerging low-loss phase change material, Sb2Se3 on a silicon photonic platform. The refractive index contrast between the amorphous and crystalline phase of the evaporated Sb-Se thin film was optimized up to 0.823 while the extinction coefficient remains less than 10−5 measured by ellipsometry. When integrated on a silicon waveguide, the propagation loss introduced by the amorphous thin film is negligibly low. After crystallization, the propagation loss of a magnetron-sputtered Sb-Se patch-covered silicon waveguide is as low as 0.019 dB/µm, while its thermal-evaporated counterpart is below 0.036 dB/µm.

Mid‐infrared (mid‐IR) on‐chip photonic devices have attracted increasing attention because of their potential applications in chemical and biological sensing and optical communications. In particular, chalcogenide glasses (ChGs) have long been regarded as promising materials for mid‐IR integrated photonics, owing to their broad infrared transparency, high nonlinearity, and excellent processing capabilities. Here, an inverse design approach is introduced to ChG photonic device design with a new robust inverse design method. A high‐performance mid‐IR inverse design polarization beam splitter, waveguide polarizer, mode converter, and wavelength demultiplexer are demonstrated for the first time. They all have a footprint of only several micrometers. The robust inverse design method could improve the robustness of device performance against fabrication variations and would be a general approach for designing and optimizing miniaturized chalcogenide photonic devices.

Topological and non‐Hermitian physics provide powerful tools for manipulating light in different ways. Recently, intense studies have converged on the interplay between topology and non‐Hermiticity, and have produced fruitful results in various photonic settings. Currently, the realization of this interplay falls under the paradigm of enabling energy exchange between topological systems and the environment. Beyond this paradigm, it is revealed that a non‐Hermitian phenomenon, i.e., the anti‐parity‐time phase transition, naturally emerges from a Hermitian system realized by coupled topological valley waveguides. Such phase transition gives two exotic topological superstates in the spectral domain. By further combining the two phases with topological robustness, a photonic topological bi‐functional device is realized on a silicon‐on‐insulator platform at telecommunications frequencies. The results provide a new perspective on light manipulation and integrated device applications.