Materials and components for photonic neural networks

Recently the academic team in this project has pioneered a new family of ultra-low loss reversible phase change materials (PCMs) for photonic integrated circuits based on Sb2Se3. This material shows a two orders of magnitude improvement in the figure of merit (switching contrast over the losses) compared to the conventional phase change material GST. Therefore, integration of these PCMs in nanophotonic devices will allow unprecedented optical phase control with many new emerging applications in programmable and rewritable optical circuits, optical signal processing and memories, neural networks, and interfacing quantum sources for quantum technology.

This project is aimed at exploring a range of new applications that are enabled by the unique combination of material properties and optical (and possible electrical) switching of its phase. The focus of these studies is directed at the integration of the new PCMs in silicon photonic integrated circuits, which can further expanded to include plasmonic and resonant nanophotonic devices on the chip. The main body of the PhD work will involve fabrication of devices using the ZI advanced glass deposition and clean room facilities for nanofabrication, performing advanced optical studies using state of the art equipment for silicon waveguide testing and optically induced phase switching, and theoretical/numerical modelling of devices using commercial software (FDTD, Comsol) and other methods (Matlab, Python). The student will engage actively with all the different aspects of the work and will be supervised by a team of experts in the different areas of study.