The on-chip photonic switch is a critical building block for photonic integrated circuits and the integration of phase change materials (PCMs) enables non-volatile switch designs that are compact, low-loss, and energy-efficient. Existing switch designs based on these materials typically rely on weak evanescent field interactions, resulting in devices with a large footprint and high energy consumption. Here, we present a compact non-volatile 2×2 switch design leveraging optical concentration in slot waveguide modes to significantly enhance interactions of light with PCM, thereby realizing a compact, efficient photonic switch. To further improve the device’s energy efficiency, we introduce an integrated single-layer graphene heater for ultrafast electrothermal switching of the PCM. Computational simulations demonstrate a 2×2 switch crosstalk (CT) down to −24 dB at 1550 nm wavelength and more than 55 nm 0.3 dB insertion loss (IL) bandwidth. The proposed photonic switch architecture can constitute the cornerstone for next-generation high-performance reconfigurable photonic circuits.
We report the fabrication of a monolithic closed-loop wavelength beam combined quantum cascade laser (QCL) source. The chip comprises five QCL gain sections connected to 5 × 1 arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) via active/passive tapered couplers and a router. The chip is fabricated on a MOCVD-grown III-V semiconductor substrate. The entire passive section of the chip undergoes ion implantation to reduce the propagation losses due to free carrier absorption. The peak power for all the QCL array elements reached 600 mW per facet with a 2 kA/cm2 threshold current density under pulsed operation. Furthermore, our WBC approach is compatible with buried heterostructure processing, which allows continuous wave operation with high output power. Our results hold promise in manufacturing compact and multiwavelength mid-infrared sources with good beam quality.
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