All-optical, non-volatile, chalcogenide phase-change meta-switch

We show experimentally that bistable, optically-induced phase switching in germanium antimony telluride (GST) - a member of the Te-based chalcogenide alloy family upon which all of today´s re-writable optical disc and phase-change RAM technologies are based - provides a platform for the engineering of non-volatile metamaterial transmission/reflection modulators (Fig. 1) for near- to mid-infrared wavelengths with thicknesses down to 1/27 of the operating wavelength. These hybrid materials provide a robust and versatile platform for a new generation of optical switching and memory devices.