Compact polarization-independent non-volatile optical switches
Abstract
Compact, non-volatile optical switches on silicon platforms are essential for reconfigurable photonics, but the strong anisotropy of silicon waveguides leads to polarization-dependent performance. In this paper, we propose a polarization-independent, non-volatile optical switch utilizing low-loss phase change material (PCM) Sb2S3. By incorporating Sb2S3 into a multimode slot waveguide, multimode interference can be efficiently tuned for both TE and TM polarizations, owing to enhanced light-PCM interaction. Polarization-independent switching is achieved through the optimal design of the multimode slot waveguide region. The proposed non-volatile switch demonstrates a crosstalk (CT) < -21.9 dB and insertion loss (IL) < 0.12 dB at 1550 nm with a multimode section length of 9.67 {\mu}m, which may find promising applications in reconfigurable photonic circuits for on-chip optical signal processing.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.20490,
title = {Compact polarization-independent non-volatile optical switches},
author = {Fangfa Bao and Jiakai Ruan and Weijia Li and Wei Zhang and Guoxiang Wang and Xiang Shen and Yixiao Gao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.20490},
year = {2025}
}