Low-loss ultrafast and nonvolatile all-optical switch enabled by all-dielectric phase change materials

Qiang He; Zhiyuan Liu; Yitao Lu; Guoxun Ban; Hao Tong; Yi Wang; Xiangshui Miao

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104375

Low-loss ultrafast and nonvolatile all-optical switch enabled by all-dielectric phase change materials

iScience. 2022 May 7;25(6):104375. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104375. eCollection 2022 Jun 17.

Authors

Qiang He^{1

2}, Zhiyuan Liu¹, Yitao Lu¹, Guoxun Ban¹, Hao Tong^{1

2}, Yi Wang¹, Xiangshui Miao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Wuhan National Research Center for Optoelectronics, School of Integrated Circuits and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430074, China.
² Hubei Yangtze Memory Laboratories, Wuhan 430205, China.

Abstract

All-optical switches show great potential to overcome the speed and power consumption limitations of electrical switching. Owing to its nonvolatile and superb cycle abilities, phase-change materials enabled all-optical switch (PC-AOS) is attracting much attention. However, realizing low-loss and ultrafast switching remains a challenge, because previous PC-AOS are mostly based on plasmonic metamaterials. The high thermal conductance of metallic materials disturbs the thermal accumulation for phase transition, and eventually decreases the switching speed to tens of nanoseconds. Here, we demonstrate an ultrafast switching (4.5 ps) and low-loss (2.8 dB) all-optical switch based on all-dielectric structure consisting of Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ and photonic crystals. Its switching speed is approximately ten thousand times faster than the plasmonic one. A 5.4 dB on-off ratio at 1550 nm has been experimentally achieved. We believe that the proposed all-dielectric optical switch will accelerate the progress of ultrafast and energy-efficient photonic devices and systems.

Keywords: Applied sciences; Materials science; Photonics.