Phase-change silicon as an ultrafast active photonic platform

Abstract: Phase change material (PCM) features distinct optical or electronic properties between amorphous and crystalline states. Recently, it starts to play a key role in the emerging photonic applications like optoelectronic display, dynamic wavefront control, on-chip photonic memory and computation. However, current PCMs do not refract effectively at visible wavelengths and suffer from deformation and decomposition, limiting the repeatability and vast visible wavelength applications. Silicon as the fundamental material for electronics and photonics, has never been considered as phase change material, due to its ultrafast crystallization kinetics. Here we show the striking fact that nanoscale silicon domains can be reversibly crystallized and amorphized under nanosecond laser pulses. For a typical disk resonator, it also provides a 25% non-volatile modulation at nanosecond time scale. We further show proof-of-concept experiments that such attributes could enable ultra-high resolution dielectric color display and dynamic visible wavefront control.