Increased Endurance of Nonvolatile Photonics Enabled by Nanostructured Phase-Change Materials.

Key Points

• The aim is to enhance the performance of silicon waveguides using nanostructured phase-change materials (PCMs).
• Used a segmented silicon waveguide to reduce insertion loss by approximately 94%.
• Implemented tapering and segmentation to optimize optical modulation amplitude and actuation voltage.
• Evaluated endurance over more than 100 million cycles.
• Achieved an optical modulation amplitude of approximately 70%.
• Maintained a low insertion loss of about 0.5 dB per π phase shift.
• Demonstrated endurance exceeding 100 million cycles.