Rewritable Integrated Photonic Circuits Using Phase Change Materials Actuated by Nanosecond Laser Pulses

Abstract

Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) are becoming essential for applications such as sensing, communication, and quantum information science. The prototyping process for these circuits, however, requires expensive nanofabrication facilities and irreversible subtractive process steps such as etching. This work demonstrates a platform that implements a prototype passive PIC by using phase change materials actuated by a nanosecond pulsed laser. Using wide bandgap materials Sb2S3 and Sb2Se3, dielectric assisted waveguides were theoretically shown to guide 1.55 μm light on chip. The calculated losses were as low as 0.0100 dB/um for Sb2S3 and 0.0086 dB/um for Sb2Se3. An experimental setup using an inexpensive nanosecond pulse laser and a high precision xyz stage was built to experimentally realize this design. Sb2S3 films up to 45 nm thick were optically switched. Various patterns were shown to reversibly undergo write, erase, and re-write cycles showing the repeatability and versatility of this setup.