The development of low-loss optical phase change materials (O-PCMs) promises to enable a plethora of nonvolatile integrated photonic applications. However, the relatively large optical constants change between different states of calls for a set of new design rationales. Here we report a non-perturbative design that enables low-loss device operation beyond the traditional figure-of-merit limit. The basic design rationale is to engineer the light propagation path through the OPCMs when it is in the low-loss amorphous state, and divert light away from the lossy crystalline state leveraging the large mode modification induced by the O-PCM phase transition. Following this approach, we demonstrate broadband photonic switches with significantly enhanced performances compared to current state-of-the-art.

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Yifei Zhang, Qihang Zhang, Jeffrey B Chou, Junying Li, Christopher Roberts, Myungkoo Kang, Claudia Gonçalves, Richard Soref, Carlos Ríos, Mikhail Shalaginov, Kathleen Richardson, Tian Gu, Vladimir Liberman, and Juejun Hu, "Designing nonvolatile integrated photonics with low-loss optical phase change materials," Proc. SPIE 11081, Active Photonic Platforms XI, 110811S (Presented at SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering: August 14, 2019; Published: 12 September 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2528993.