Ultra-compact nonvolatile phase shifter based on electrically reprogrammable transparent phase change materials

1.
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
2.
Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
3.
Research Center for Intelligent Optoelectronic Computing, Zhejiang Lab, 311121, Hangzhou, China
4.
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
5.
Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, MA, USA
6.
The College of Optics & Photonics, CREOL, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
7.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
8.
Materials Research Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

Funds: The authors acknowledge fabrication facility support by the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories, the Materials Research Laboratory, and the Lincoln Laboratory Microelectronic Laboratory.

摘要

Abstract: Optical phase shifters constitute the fundamental building blocks that enable programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs)—the cornerstone of on-chip classical and quantum optical technologies [1, 2]. Thus far, carrier modulation and thermo-optical effect are the chosen phenomena for ultrafast and low-loss phase shifters, respectively; however, the state and information they carry are lost once the power is turned off—they are volatile. The volatility not only compromises energy efficiency due to their demand for constant power supply, but also precludes them from emerging applications such as in-memory computing. To circumvent this limitation, we introduce a phase shifting mechanism that exploits the nonvolatile refractive index modulation upon structural phase transition of Sb₂Se₃, a bi-state transparent phase change material (PCM). A zero-static power and electrically-driven phase shifter is realized on a CMOS-backend silicon-on-insulator platform, featuring record phase modulation up to 0.09 π/µm and a low insertion loss of 0.3 dB/π, which can be further improved upon streamlined design. Furthermore, we demonstrate phase and extinction ratio trimming of ring resonators and pioneer a one-step partial amorphization scheme to enhance speed and energy efficiency of PCM devices. A diverse cohort of programmable photonic devices is demonstrated based on the ultra-compact PCM phase shifter.

HTML全文

参考文献(58)

[1]	Bogaerts W, et al. Programmable photonic circuits. Nature. 2020;586:207–16.
[2]	Carolan J, et al. Universal linear optics. Sci (1979). 2015;349:711–6.
[3]	Cheng Q, Bahadori M, Glick M, Rumley S, Bergman K. Recent advances in optical technologies for data centers: a review. Optica. 2018;5:1354.
[4]	Sun J, Timurdogan E, Yaacobi A, Hosseini ES, Watts MR. Large-scale nanophotonic phased array. Nature. 2013;493:195.
[5]	Kita DM, et al. High-performance and scalable on-chip digital Fourier transform spectroscopy. Nat Commun. 2018;9:1–7.
[6]	Shen Y, et al. Deep learning with coherent nanophotonic circuits. Nat Photonics. 2017;11:441–6.
[7]	Arrazola JM, et al. Quantum circuits with many photons on a programmable nanophotonic chip. Nature. 2021;591:54–60.
[8]	Witzens J High-Speed Silicon Photonics Modulators. Proceedings of the IEEE106, 2158–2182 (2018).
[9]	Pfeifle J, Alloatti L, Freude W, Leuthold J, Koos C. Silicon-organic hybrid phase shifter based on a slot waveguide with a liquid-crystal cladding. Opt Express. 2012;20:15359.
[10]	Melikyan A, et al. High-speed plasmonic phase modulators. Nat Photonics. 2014;8:229–33.
[11]	Abel S, et al. Large Pockels effect in micro- and nanostructured barium titanate integrated on silicon. Nat Mater. 2019;18:42–7.
[12]	Harris NC, et al. Efficient, compact and low loss thermo-optic phase shifter in silicon. Opt Express. 2014;22:10487.
[13]	Grottke T, Hartmann W, Schuck C, Pernice, W. H. P. Optoelectromechanical phase shifter with low insertion loss and a 13π tuning range. Opt Express. 2021;29:5525.
[14]	Grajower M, Mazurski N, Shappir J, Levy U. Non-Volatile Silicon Photonics Using Nanoscale Flash Memory Technology. Laser Photon Rev. 2018;12:1–8.
[15]	Errando-Herranz C, et al. MEMS for Photonic Integrated Circuits. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 26, (2020).
[16]	Geler-Kremer J, et al. A Non-Volatile Optical Memory in Silicon Photonics. 2021 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition, OFC 2021 - Proceedings 12–14 (2021).
[17]	Wuttig M, Bhaskaran H, Taubner T. Phase-change materials for non-volatile photonic applications. Nat Photonics. 2017;11:465–76.
[18]	Abdollahramezani S, et al. Tunable nanophotonics enabled by chalcogenide phase-change materials. Nanophotonics. 2020;9:1189–241.
[19]	Wang J, Wang L, Liu J. Overview of Phase-Change Materials Based Photonic Devices. IEEE Access. 2020;8:121211–45.
[20]	Rios C, et al. Integrated all-photonic non-volatile multi-level memory. Nat Photonics. 2015;9:725–32.
[21]	Zhang H, et al. Ultracompact Si-GST hybrid waveguides for nonvolatile light wave manipulation. IEEE Photonics J. 2018;10:1–10.
[22]	Zhang Q, et al. Broadband nonvolatile photonic switching based on optical phase change materials: beyond the classical figure-of-merit. Opt Lett. 2018;43:94.
[23]	Michel AKU, et al. Using low-loss phase-change materials for mid-infrared antenna resonance tuning. Nano Lett. 2013;13:3470–5.
[24]	Dong W, et al. Wide Bandgap Phase Change Material Tuned Visible Photonics. Adv Funct Mater. 2019;29:1806181.
[25]	Liu H, et al. Rewritable color nanoprints in antimony trisulfide films. Sci Adv. 2020;6:7171–87.
[26]	Fang Z, et al. Non-Volatile Reconfigurable Integrated Photonics Enabled by Broadband Low-Loss Phase Change Material. Adv Opt Mater. 2021;9:1–11.
[27]	Delaney M, Zeimpekis I, Lawson D, Hewak DW, Muskens OL. A New Family of Ultralow Loss Reversible Phase-Change Materials for Photonic Integrated Circuits: Sb ₂ S ₃ and Sb ₂ Se ₃. Adv Funct Mater. 2020;30:2002447.
[28]	Delaney M, et al. Nonvolatile programmable silicon photonics using an ultralow-loss Sb 2 Se 3 phase change material. Sci Adv. 2021;7:1–8.
[29]	Faneca J, et al. Towards low loss non-volatile phase change materials in mid index waveguides. Neuromorphic Comput Eng. 2021;1:014004.
[30]	Zhang H, et al. Miniature Multilevel Optical Memristive Switch Using Phase Change Material. ACS Photonics. 2019;6:2205–12.
[31]	Li Y, et al. Coupled-ring-resonator-based silicon modulator for enhanced performance. Opt Express. 2008;16:13342.
[32]	Zhang Y, et al. Electrically reconfigurable non-volatile metasurface using low-loss optical phase-change material. Nat Nanotechnol. 2021;16:661–6.
[33]	Zheng J, et al. Nonvolatile Electrically Reconfigurable Integrated Photonic Switch Enabled by a Silicon PIN Diode Heater. Adv Mater. 2020;32:2001218.
[34]	Farmakidis N, et al. Electronically Reconfigurable Photonic Switches Incorporating Plasmonic Structures and Phase Change Materials. Adv Sci. 2022;9:2200383.
[35]	Meng J, et al. Electrical Programmable Multi-Level Non-volatile Photonic Random-Access Memory. ArXiv.2203.13337 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2203.13337 (2022).
[36]	Zhang Y, et al. Myths and truths about optical phase change materials: A perspective. Appl Phys Lett 118, (2021).
[37]	Ríos C, et al. In-memory computing on a photonic platform. Sci Adv. 2019;5:eaau5759.
[38]	Fang Z, et al. Ultra-low-energy programmable non-volatile silicon photonics based on phase-change materials with graphene heaters. Nat Nanotechnol. 2022;17:842–8.
[39]	Taghinejad H, et al. ITO-based microheaters for reversible multi-stage switching of phase-change materials: towards miniaturized beyond-binary reconfigurable integrated photonics. Opt Express. 2021;29:20449.
[40]	Ríos C, et al. Multi-Level Electro‐Thermal Switching of Optical Phase‐Change Materials Using Graphene. Adv Photonics Res. 2020;2:2000034.
[41]	Youngblood N, et al. Reconfigurable Low-Emissivity Optical Coating Using Ultrathin Phase Change Materials. ACS Photonics. 2022;9:90–100.
[42]	Kato K, Kuwahara M, Kawashima H, Tsuruoka T, Tsuda H. Current-driven phase-change optical gate switch using indium-tin-oxide heater. Applied Physics Express 10, (2017).
[43]	Suzuki K, et al. Low-Insertion-Loss and Power-Efficient 32 × 32 Silicon Photonics Switch with Extremely High-∆ Silica PLC Connector. J Lightwave Technol. 2019;37:116–22.
[44]	Feldmann J, et al. Parallel convolution processing using an integrated photonic tensor coer. Nature vol. 589 52–58 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03070-1 (2021).
[45]	Wu C, et al. Programmable phase-change metasurfaces on waveguides for multimode photonic convolutional neural network. Nat Commun. 2021;12:1–8.
[46]	Shastri BJ, et al. Photonics for artificial intelligence and neuromorphic computing. Nat Photonics. 2021;15:102–14.
[47]	Zhang Y, et al. Transient Tap Couplers for Wafer-Level Photonic Testing Based on Optical Phase Change Materials. ACS Photonics. 2021;8:1903–8.
[48]	Jacques M, et al. Optimization of thermo-optic phase-shifter design and mitigation of thermal crosstalk on the SOI platform. Opt Express. 2019;27:10456.
[49]	Parra J, Hurtado J, Griol A, Sanchis P. Ultra-low loss hybrid ITO/Si thermo-optic phase shifter with optimized power consumption. Opt Express 28, (2020).
[50]	Vlasov YA, O’Boyle M, Hamann HF, McNab SJ. Active control of slow light on a chip with photonic crystal waveguides. Nature. 2005;438:65–9.
[51]	Zhang F, et al. Toward single lane 200G optical interconnects with silicon photonic modulator. J Lightwave Technol. 2019;38:67–74.
[52]	Kang G, et al. Silicon-Based Optical Phased Array Using Electro-Optic Phase Shifters. IEEE Photonics Technol Lett. 2019;31:1685–8.
[53]	Geler-Kremer J, et al. A ferroelectric multilevel non-volatile photonic phase shifter. Nat Photonics. 2022;16:491–7.
[54]	He M, et al. High-performance hybrid silicon and lithium niobate Mach–Zehnder modulators for 100 Gbit s -1 and beyond. Nat Photonics. 2019;13:359–64.
[55]	Datta I, et al. Low-loss composite photonic platform based on 2D semiconductor monolayers. Nat Photonics 14, (2020).
[56]	Zhang Y, et al. Broadband transparent optical phase change materials for high-performance nonvolatile photonics. Nat Commun. 2019;10:2–3.
[57]	Hu J, et al. Fabrication and testing of planar chalcogenide waveguide integrated microfluidic sensor. Opt Express. 2007;15:2307.
[58]	Petit L, et al. Compositional dependence of the nonlinear refractive index of new germanium-based chalcogenide glasses. J Solid State Chem. 2009;182:2756–61.