Broadband transparent optical phase change materials for high-performance nonvolatile photonics

Yifei Zhang, Jeffrey B. Chou (), Junying Li, Huashan Li, Qingyang Du, Anupama Yadav, Si Zhou, Mikhail Y. Shalaginov, Zhuoran Fang, Huikai Zhong, Christopher Roberts, Paul Robinson, Bridget Bohlin, Carlos Ríos, Hongtao Lin, Myungkoo Kang, Tian Gu, Jamie Warner, Vladimir Liberman, Kathleen Richardson and Juejun Hu ()
Additional contact information
Yifei Zhang: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jeffrey B. Chou: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Junying Li: University of Shanghai for Science and Technology
Huashan Li: Sun Yat-sen University
Qingyang Du: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Anupama Yadav: University of Central Florida
Si Zhou: University of Oxford
Mikhail Y. Shalaginov: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Zhuoran Fang: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Huikai Zhong: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Christopher Roberts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Paul Robinson: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bridget Bohlin: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Carlos Ríos: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hongtao Lin: Zhejiang University
Myungkoo Kang: University of Central Florida
Tian Gu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jamie Warner: University of Oxford
Vladimir Liberman: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kathleen Richardson: University of Central Florida
Juejun Hu: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Optical phase change materials (O-PCMs), a unique group of materials featuring exceptional optical property contrast upon a solid-state phase transition, have found widespread adoption in photonic applications such as switches, routers and reconfigurable meta-optics. Current O-PCMs, such as Ge–Sb–Te (GST), exhibit large contrast of both refractive index (Δn) and optical loss (Δk), simultaneously. The coupling of both optical properties fundamentally limits the performance of many applications. Here we introduce a new class of O-PCMs based on Ge–Sb–Se–Te (GSST) which breaks this traditional coupling. The optimized alloy, Ge2Sb2Se4Te1, combines broadband transparency (1–18.5 μm), large optical contrast (Δn = 2.0), and significantly improved glass forming ability, enabling an entirely new range of infrared and thermal photonic devices. We further demonstrate nonvolatile integrated optical switches with record low loss and large contrast ratio and an electrically-addressed spatial light modulator pixel, thereby validating its promise as a material for scalable nonvolatile photonics.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12196-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-12196-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12196-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().