Electrical Programmable Low-loss high cyclable Nonvolatile Photonic Random-Access Memory

Meng, Junling; Gui, Yaliang; Nouri, Behrouz Movahhed; Comanescu, G.; Ma, Xiaoxuan; Zhang, Yifei; Popescu, Cosmin-Constantin; Kang, Myungkoo; Miscuglio, Mario; Peserico, Nicola; Richardson, Kathleen; Hu, Juejun; Dalir, Hamed; Sorger, Volker J.

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2203.13337

Cited by 10 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…Electrically controlled PCM waveguide switches with a reliable multilevel operation were demonstrated recently using segmented heaters for both phase-only and amplitude modulation . Here we propose a similar scheme using multiple PIN silicon heaters, as shown in Figure a,c. Each heater separately controls a short PCM patch in a binary but reliable manner.…”

Section: Challenges and Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Early works reported limited cyclability (around 10 cycles) and low optical contrast (less than 1 dB) . Recently, high endurance (over half a million cycles) and large contrast switching (more than 10 dB contrast) have been achieved using external heaters ,,, with high-quality encapsulation.…”

Section: Review Of Phase-change Materials Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are predominantly two types of electrical heaters: (1) doped intrinsic semiconductor, such as silicon, on which the PICs are fabricated; ,, and (2) extrinsic heaters, such as metal, graphene, , indium-doped tin oxide (ITO), , or fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) . A detailed simulation study of different heaters revealed that graphene heaters are much more electrical energy-efficient than doped semiconductors (such as PIN diode-based silicon heaters) or ITO heaters, primarily because of graphene’s much smaller active volume.…”

Section: Review Of Phase-change Materials Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Optical amplitude switches ,, and phase shifters are demonstrated with electrical control using doped silicon heaters. Additionally, electrically controlled tunable 2 × 2 beam splitters switching between cross and bar ports over more than 2800 cycles have been reported with GST and PIN heaters .…”

Section: Review Of Phase-change Materials Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The high material loss of traditional PCMs, for example, GST, ,, GeTe, GSST, and GSSe, can introduce extra device insertion loss. Deposited on top of Si 3 N 4 or silicon waveguides, PCMs provide strong reconfigurability.…”

Section: Challenges and Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Opportunities and Challenges for Large-Scale Phase-Change Material Integrated Electro-Photonics

et al. 2022

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Programmable photonics have the potential to completely transform a range of emerging applications, including optical computing, optical signal processing, light detecting and ranging, and quantum applications. However, implementing energy-efficient and large-scale systems remains elusive because commonly used programmable photonic approaches are volatile and energy-hungry. Recent results on nonvolatile phase-change material (PCM) integrated photonics present a promising opportunity to create truly programmable photonics. The ability to drastically change the refractive index of the PCMs in a nonvolatile fashion allows creating programmable units with zero-static energy. By taking advantage of the electrical control, nonvolatile reconfiguration, and zero crosstalk between each unit, PCMs can enable extra large-scale integrated (ELSI) photonics. In this Perspective, we briefly review the recent progress in PCM photonics and discuss the challenges and limitations of this emerging technology. We argue that energy efficiency is a more critical parameter than the operating speed for programmable photonics, making PCMs an ideal candidate. This has the potential for a disruptive paradigm shift in the reconfigurable photonics research philosophy, as slow but energy-efficient and large index modulation can provide a better solution for ELSI photonics than fast but power-hungry, small index tuning methods. We also highlight the exciting opportunities to leverage wide bandgap PCMs for visible-wavelength applications, such as quantum photonics and optogenetics, and for rewritable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) using nanosecond pulsed lasers. The latter can dramatically reduce the fabrication cost of PICs and democratize the PIC manufacturing process for rapid prototyping.

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Section: Challenges and Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Review Of Phase-change Materials Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Review Of Phase-change Materials Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Review Of Phase-change Materials Photonicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges and Opportunitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Opportunities and Challenges for Large-Scale Phase-Change Material Integrated Electro-Photonics

et al. 2022

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Waveguide‐Based On‐Chip Photothermal Spectroscopy for Gas Sensing

Zheng,

Pi,

Huang

et al. 2024

Laser & Photonics Reviews

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On‐chip waveguide spectroscopic sensors have attracted considerable attention due to its potential for large‐scale integration. However, existing waveguide gas sensors based on direct absorption spectroscopy (DAS) suffer from limited sensitivity and measurement range. Here waveguide‐based on‐chip photothermal spectroscopy (PTS) is demonstrated for gas detection with high sensitivity and large dynamic range. On‐chip photothermal field due to non‐radiation relaxation of gas molecules and the resulted photothermal phase modulation are analyzed. By selecting chalcogenide glass (ChG) as the core‐layer material and fabricating thermally‐isolated ChG‐on‐SU8 waveguide for thermal field accumulation, a twofold increase in photothermal phase modulation is achieved as compared to ChG‐on‐SiO2 waveguides. Different from the major concern of multi‐path etalon noise in DAS, piezoelectric transducer noise in the interferometer is identified as the main source in this PTS. For a fair comparison, acetylene (C2H2) detection experiments are conducted using PTS and DAS with a 2 cm‐long ChG‐on‐SU8 waveguide. A remarkable sensitivity of 4 parts‐per‐million (ppm) is achieved, which is 16 times better than that of DAS. The dynamic range extends over five orders of magnitude for PTS, ≈3 orders of magnitude larger than that of DAS. Such high performance opens the possibility of fully‐integrated chip‐level sensors for low‐power, light‐weight applications.

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