First demonstration of CMOS compatible electrical programmable photonic memory cell

We propose an electrically programmable, multi-level non-volatile photonics memory cell (PMC) fabricated by standard CMOS compatible processes. A micro-ring resonator (MRR) was built using the PMC to demonstrate programmable and erase functions.

1. Introduction

Silicon photonics circuits are playing increasingly important roles in optical communication and interconnect fields [1], [2]. However, conventional integrated optical waveguide is without memory functionality. Therefore, refractive index changes within an optical waveguide is required to maintain the state of the waveguide in devices such as optical switches and modulators [3], [4]. This results in large energy consumption during operation. Here we design and demonstrate experimentally an electrically programmable and erasable, non-volatile optical waveguide memory structure. Using electrical voltage pulses, the waveguide state is changed while no energy is required to maintain the optical memory state. This novel optical memory waveguide structure can be utilized to have significant impact on various applications in optical interconnects, memory input/output interfaces, and neural networking.