Design of Ultra-Compact Optical Memristive Switches with GST as the Active Material

Ningning Wang; Hanyu Zhang; Linjie Zhou; Liangjun Lu; Jianping Chen; B M A Rahman

doi:10.3390/mi10070453

Design of Ultra-Compact Optical Memristive Switches with GST as the Active Material

Micromachines (Basel). 2019 Jul 5;10(7):453. doi: 10.3390/mi10070453.

Authors

Ningning Wang¹, Hanyu Zhang¹, Linjie Zhou², Liangjun Lu¹, Jianping Chen¹, B M A Rahman³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China. ljzhou@sjtu.edu.cn.
³ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, City, University of London, London EC1V 0HB, UK.

Abstract

In the following study, we propose optical memristive switches consisting of a silicon waveguide integrated with phase-change material Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST). Thanks to its high refractive index contrast between the crystalline and amorphous states, a miniature-size GST material can offer a high switching extinction ratio. We optimize the device design by using finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) simulations. A device with a length of 4.7 μm including silicon waveguide tapers exhibits a high extinction ratio of 33.1 dB and a low insertion loss of 0.48 dB around the 1550 nm wavelength. The operation bandwidth of the device is around 60 nm.

Keywords: integrated silicon photonic circuits; nanophononics; optical switch; phase change material.

Abstract

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