Fast and low-energy Sb2Te phase-change radio-frequency switches enabling nonvolatile reconfigurable filters

Radio-frequency (RF) switches are fundamental building blocks in wireless communication and microwave systems. Phase-change materials (PCM) based RF switches, which offer nonvolatility, low power consumption, and fast programmability, have emerged as promising candidates for RF front ends. Here, we demonstrate high-performance Sb2Te-based phase-change RF switches with a fast switching speed of 50 ns, low switching energy of 11.17 nJ, and measured cycling endurance of 1100 switching cycles. The devices deliver excellent RF performance across the frequency range of 0.1–67 GHz, including an insertion loss below 0.8 dB and an isolation above 19.0 dB. The RF power handling capability reaches approximately 23–24 dBm at 5 GHz before irreversible degradation, with RF-induced self-actuation occurring at 13.65 dBm. Furthermore, the switches can be integrated into a fourth-order parallel-coupled bandpass filter, enabling multistate programmable reconfiguration with nonvolatile center-frequency tuning from 3.20 to 3.49 GHz. This study highlights the potential of Sb2Te as a promising PCM platform for energy-efficient and nonvolatile RF switches, providing insights into the development of next-generation adaptive and reconfigurable RF front-end architectures.