Photonic Devices: Plasmonic Metasurfaces for Switchable Photonic Spin-Orbit Interactions Based on Phase Change Materials (Adv. Sci. 10/2018)

In recent decades, metasurfaces have emerged as an exotic and appealing group of nanophotonic devices for versatile wave regulation with deep subwavelength thickness facilitating compact integration. However, the ability to dynamically control the wave–matter interaction with external stimulus is highly desirable especially in such scenarios as integrated photonics and optoelectronics, since their performance in amplitude and phase control settle down once manufactured. Currently, available routes to construct active photonic devices include micro-electromechanical system (MEMS), semiconductors, liquid crystal, and phase change materials (PCMs)-integrated hybrid devices, etc. For the sake of compact integration and good compatibility with the mainstream complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process for nanofabrication and device integration, the PCMs-based scheme stands out as a viable and promising candidate. Therefore, this review focuses on recent progresses on phase change metasurfaces with dynamic wave control (amplitude and phase or wavefront), and especially outlines those with continuous or quasi-continuous atoms in favor of optoelectronic integration.

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Optically reconfigurable metasurfaces and photonic devices based on phase change materials

Nature Photonics ◽

10.1038/nphoton.2015.247 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 60-65 ◽

Cited By ~ 481

Author(s):

Qian Wang ◽

Edward T. F. Rogers ◽

Behrad Gholipour ◽

Chih-Ming Wang ◽

Guanghui Yuan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phase Change ◽

Phase Change Materials ◽

Photonic Devices

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The role of structural order and stiffness in the simultaneous enhancement of optical contrast and thermal stability in phase change materials

Journal of Materials Chemistry C ◽

10.1039/c8tc06409a ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 (14) ◽

pp. 4132-4142 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Qian Li ◽

Kaicheng Xu ◽

Xiaoyi Wang ◽

Haihua Huang ◽

Liang Ma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thermal Stability ◽

Phase Change ◽

Energy Saving ◽

Phase Change Materials ◽

Photonic Devices ◽

Optical Contrast ◽

The Past ◽

Structural Order ◽

Perfect Absorbers

In the past several years, phase change materials (PCMs) have been widely applied in energy-saving non-volatile photonic devices, such as active perfect absorbers, nanopixel displays and all-photonic memories.

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On-Chip Integrated Photonic Devices Based on Phase Change Materials

Photonics ◽

10.3390/photonics8060205 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (6) ◽

pp. 205

Author(s):

Muhammad Shemyal Nisar ◽

Xing Yang ◽

Liangjun Lu ◽

Jianping Chen ◽

Linjie Zhou

Keyword(s):

Optical Properties ◽

Phase Change ◽

Phase Change Materials ◽

Photonic Devices ◽

Memory Devices ◽

Electrical And Optical Properties ◽

Unique Type ◽

Fast Pace ◽

On Chip ◽

Made In

Phase change materials present a unique type of materials that drastically change their electrical and optical properties on the introduction of an external electrical or optical stimulus. Although these materials have been around for some decades, they have only recently been implemented for on-chip photonic applications. Since their reinvigoration a few years ago, on-chip devices based on phase change materials have been making a lot of progress, impacting many diverse applications at a very fast pace. At present, they are found in many interesting applications including switches and modulation; however, phase change materials are deemed most essential for next-generation low-power memory devices and neuromorphic computational platforms. This review seeks to highlight the progress thus far made in on-chip devices derived from phase change materials including memory devices, neuromorphic computing, switches, and modulators.

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

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-019-12196-4 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

Yifei Zhang ◽

Jeffrey B. Chou ◽

Junying Li ◽

Huashan Li ◽

Qingyang Du ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phase Change ◽

High Performance ◽

Phase Change Materials ◽

Contrast Ratio ◽

Optical Loss ◽

Photonic Devices ◽

Light Modulator ◽

Optical Phase ◽

New Class ◽

Integrated Optical

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.

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Phase change materials in photonic devices

Journal of Applied Physics ◽

10.1063/5.0027868 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 129 (3) ◽

pp. 030902

Author(s):

Zilun Gong ◽

Fuyi Yang ◽

Letian Wang ◽

Rui Chen ◽

Junqiao Wu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phase Change ◽

Phase Change Materials ◽

Photonic Devices

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Near-Infrared Rewritable, Non-Volatile Subwavelength Absorber Based on Chalcogenide Phase Change Materials

Nanomaterials ◽

10.3390/nano10061222 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (6) ◽

pp. 1222 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jianfa Zhang ◽

Yiqiong Zhang ◽

Qilin Hong ◽

Wei Xu ◽

Zhihong Zhu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Phase Change ◽

Phase Change Materials ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Beam Steering ◽

Contrast Ratio ◽

Photonic Devices ◽

Optical Modulation ◽

High Contrast ◽

Perfect Absorption ◽

Continuous Tuning

Chalcogenide phase change materials enable the realization of novel, non-volatile, switchable electronic and photonic devices. In this paper, we propose a type of rewritable, non-volatile near infrared subwavelength absorber based on chalcogenide phase change materials. Our numerical simulations show that nearly perfect absorption more than 0.99 can be realized in the written state while the absorption of as-deposited or erased state is lower than 0.15 in the studied spectral range, leading to high contrast ratio of reflection more than 20 dB. Continuous tuning of the absorption spectra can be realized not only by varying the geometric parameters of the absorber but also by changing the crystallization ratio of the switched Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 (GST). The proposed device may find widespread applications in optical modulation, beam steering and so on.

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