| Miniaturization has the potential to reduce the size, cost, and power requirements of active optical devices. However, implementing (sub)wavelength-scale electro-optic switches with high efficiency, low insertion loss, and high extinction ratios remains challenging due to their small active volumes. Here, we use the insulator-metal phase transition of vanadium dioxide (VO2), which exhibits a large and reversible change in the refractive index across the phase transition to demonstrate compact, broadband, and efficient switches and photodetectors with record-setting characteristics. We begin by analyzing the electrical and optical properties of VO2 thin films across the phase transition and discuss the fabrication processes that yield micron- and nano-scale VO2 devices. We then demonstrate a surface plasmon thermo-optic switch, which achieves an extinction ratio of 10 dB in a 5 um long device, a record for plasmonic devices. The switch operates over a 100 nm optical bandwidth, and exhibits a thermally limited switching time of 40 mus. We investigate the current and voltage induced switching of VO2 in nano-gap junctions and show optical switching times as short as 20 ns. The two terminal VO2 junctions are incorporated in a silicon photonics platform to yield silicon-VO2 hybrid waveguide devices with a record extinction ratio of 12 dB in a 1 mum long device. In photodetector mode, the devices exhibit a nonlinear responsivity greater than 12 A/W for optical powers less than 1 muW. This device is the smallest electrically controlled and integrated switch and photodetector capable of achieving extinction ratios > 10 dB/mum. We finally investigate the ultra-fast thermal heating in gold nano-apertures and demonstrate that electron heating can change the gold lattice temperature by 300 K in tens of picoseconds. These nano-apertures can be hybridized with VO2 to demonstrate high extinction and ultrafast optical switches. |
