Optical Phase Transition in Tin Diselenide for Photonic Non-Volatile Memory Applications

The demand for all-photonic memories has increased alongside advances in photonic technologies and nanofabrication, necessitating compatibility with semiconductor processes for integration with electronic circuitry. Phase-change materials (PCMs), particularly chalcogenide glasses, are promising due to their non-volatile transitions and significant optical contrast between crystalline and amorphous phases [1], [2]. <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$Ge_{2}Sb_{2}Te_{5}$</tex> (GST), a widely studied PCM [1], suffers from high optical losses, which limit its effectiveness. To address this limitation, we demonstrate a non-volatile optical phase transition in tin diselenide <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$(SnSe_{2})$</tex>, a material characterized by low-loss transition states and high optical contrast. These properties make <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$SnSe_{2}$</tex> a compelling candidate for photonic memory applications, overcoming the shortcomings of conventional PCMs.