Journal
ACS PHOTONICS
Volume 9, Issue 6, Pages 2142-2150Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.2c00452
Keywords
phase-change materials; reprogrammable photonics; zero static energy; silicon photonics
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [NNCI-1542101, 1337840, 0335765]
- National Institutes of Health
- Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute
- Clean Energy Institute
- Washington Research Foundation
- M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust
- Altatech
- ClassOne Technology
- GCE Market
- SPTS
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Programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have recently gained significant interest due to their potential in next-generation technologies. The fundamental building block is a 2 x 2 programmable unit, traditionally controlled by thermal or free-carrier dispersion. However, these implementations are power-hungry and volatile, making a set-and-forget-type unit with zero static power consumption highly desirable. This report presents a nonvolatile electrically controlled 2 x 2 programmable unit in silicon photonics, which exhibits compact size, low insertion loss, and minimal crosstalk.
Programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have recently gained significant interest because of their potential in creating next-generation technologies ranging from artificial neural networks and microwave photonics to quantum information processing. The fundamental building block of such programmable PICs is a 2 x 2 programmable unit, traditionally controlled by the thermo-optic or free-carrier dispersion. However, these implementations are power-hungry and volatile and have a large footprint (typically >100 mu m). Therefore, a truly set-and-forget-type 2 x 2 programmable unit with zero static power consumption is highly desirable for large-scale PICs. Here, we report a broadband nonvolatile electrically controlled 2 x 2 programmable unit in silicon photonics based on the phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5. The directional coupler-type programmable unit exhibits a compact coupling length (64 mu m), small insertion loss (similar to 2 dB), and minimal crosstalk (<-8 dB) across the entire telecommunication C-band while maintaining a record-high endurance of over 2800 switching cycles without significant performance degradation. This nonvolatile programmable unit constitutes a critical component for realizing future generic programmable silicon photonic systems.
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