Low Energy Switching of Phase Change Materials Using a 2D Thermal Boundary Layer.

The switchable optical and electrical properties of phase change materials (PCMs) are finding new applications beyond data storage in reconfigurable photonic devices. However, high power heat pulses are needed to melt-quench the material from crystalline to amorphous. This is especially true in silicon photonics, where the high thermal conductivity of the waveguide material makes heating the PCM energy inefficient.

Programmable chalcogenide-based all-optical deep neural networks.

We demonstrate a passive all-chalcogenide all-optical perceptron scheme. The network's nonlinear activation function (NLAF) relies on the nonlinear response of GeSbTe to femtosecond laser pulses. We measured the sub-picosecond time-resolved optical constants of GeSbTe at a wavelength of 1500 nm and used them to design a high-speed GeSbTe-tuned microring resonator all-optical NLAF.