Design of non-volatile photonic-electronic memory cell
The non-volatile photonic-electronic memory cell is based on a ring resonator structure, as illustrated in Fig. 1a, while Fig. 1b provides the zoom-in cross-section of the ring region. The microscope image of the fabricated memory cell is shown in Fig. 1c. Light is coupled in and out of the chip by using two partially etched grating couplers. In the ring resonator region shown in Fig. 1b, an FE capacitor is directly fabricated on the Si waveguide using 10 nm-thick HAO as the dielectric layer, offering an effective modulation of the silicon waveguide by the FE polarization. In the capacitor, a 13 nm indium tin oxide (ITO) serves as the top transparent electrode, while the p-type lightly doped Si waveguide with a hole concentration (Nh) around 1×1017 cm− 3 serves as the bottom electrode. A larger area of nickel is deposited on the Si bottom electrode to lower the parasitic resistance in the measurement. It should be noted that the fabrication of the FE capacitor is independent of the fabrication of waveguide components.
Upon applying different voltages on top and bottom electrodes, the dipoles inside the HAO film can be switched, after which a remnant polarization (Pr) corresponding to the applied electric field maintains. This Pr modifies the Nh in the p-type Si waveguide underneath the HAO, and thereby changes the RI of the waveguide. As shown by the cross-sectional view in Fig. 1b and Nh simulation results in Fig. 1d, when negative (positive) voltage is applied on the top electrode, the dipoles will be switched to a direction that can attract (repel) the holes, then the Nh in the Si will be higher (lower). Due to the permanent dipole moment after switching, the change in Nh is non-volatile and directly related to the Pr. The accumulated (depleted) holes decrease (increase) the RIs and the propagation constant, leading to the blue (red) shift of the resonance peaks. Considering the waveguide dispersion in the submicron silicon waveguide and the resonant phenomenon in the micro-ring, this effect can be quantified by45
$$\varDelta {\lambda }_{\text{r}\text{e}\text{s}}=\frac{\varDelta {n}_{\text{e}\text{f}\text{f}}\bullet {\lambda }_{\text{r}\text{e}\text{s}}}{{n}_{\text{g}}}$$
,
where ∆neff is the effective index change induced by the difference in carrier concentration; ng is the group index; λres is the center wavelength of one resonance peak; ∆λres denotes the wavelength shift. This shifted resonance peak position can then be optically read out by either measuring the optical spectrum when the input is a broadband light or the output power when the input is a tuneable laser aligned to a resonance peak. Non-destructive electrical reading is achieved by sensing the capacitance change using a small electric signal before and after the FE switching46. Noted that the readings are based on different mechanisms, thus the optical reading and electrical reading can operate independently without any conflict in future electronic-photonic systems as shown in Fig. 1a.
We aim to design a photonic-electronic memory that is capable of mixed-mode operations, where optical/electrical programming/erasing are all feasible. As shown in Fig. 1a, electrical programming/erasing biases can be directly applied from the Eprogram/erase port to control the FE switching. Optical programming/erasing will rely on two photodiodes (PDs) to convert the optical power to electrical bias. These two PDs are constantly reverse-biased. When optical power is presented on the PDs, PDs serve as current sources, which can deliver the applied reverse-bias voltages to the FE capacitor assisted by a pull-up resistor. In this way, optical power can be used for programming/erasing. Upon programming/erasing, the results will be read out from the grating coupler optically, or from the Eread port electrically.
Based on the device design, the simulations have been conducted on the ring region accordingly to confirm the working principle, as shown in Fig. 1d, 1e, and 1f for Nh distribution, optical mode profile, and neff simulation, respectively. The FE capacitor on the Si waveguide is erased/programmed using voltages with different polarities and read at 1 V. Pronounced differences in Nh (> 8 orders difference at + 1 V reading voltage) are found in the Sentaurus TCAD simulation in Fig. 1d, which is expected due to the large and opposite Pr after programming and erasing. The waveguide is designed to have an etching depth of 120 nm and a width of 500 nm. Single-mode operation is confirmed by the Lumerical MODE simulation, shown in Fig. 1e. Due to the large Nh difference, the simulated optical effective index response in Fig. 1f shows a counter-clockwise hysteresis loop representing the effect of ferroelectric-induced modulation of Nh on optical phase, which can be further converted to resonant peak shift.
Non-volatile photonic-electronic memory cell performance
The devices were fabricated after the device design and the simulation confirmation. Detailed fabrication processes, SEM/TEM characterizations, and the electrical characterizations of the FE film can be found in the Method section as well as the supplementary material Fig. S1 and S2. When measuring the devices, the operational speed is limited by the carrier generation/recombination time of Si for the FE switching process40. Therefore, all the measurements were carried out with a visible laser irradiating on the ring region to boost the electron generation/recombination speed. The power spectra (Fig. 2a) of the optical ring resonator were measured under a reading voltage of 1 V after programming and erasing using − 5 V and 5 V, respectively. An excellent ER of 6.6 dB is shown, which is one of the highest ER among the reported works20–26, 31,32,35 considering the low voltage used. For practical applications, photodetectors will be used to read the stored state. In this case, a high ER is preferred as it can lower the bit-error-rate (BER) of the stored information. A maximum peak difference of 0.14 nm is also featured in this test. Quality factors of the resonance peaks are different in these two states, indicating that the carrier concentrations are varying in different states. Detailed studies of the quality factor are shown in supplementary material Fig. S3. In addition to the spectra, we extracted the resonance peak positions and plotted them in Fig. 2b, in which clear counter-clockwise hysteresis loops can be observed for both 4 V and 5 V sweeping voltages. The hysteresis direction is critical here because it can validate the working principle. When the biasing voltage is sweeping from − 5 V to 5 V, the FE layer HAO is first programmed by -5 V, resulting in hole accumulation in the waveguide. The effect of hole accumulation is retained by the Pr of the HAO layer, so the resonance peaks in the forward (-5 V to 5 V) sweeping is blue shifted compared with the resonance peaks in the backward (5 V to -5 V) sweeping. The experimentally measured counter-clockwise hysteresis loop is direct evidence for the proper functioning of our non-volatile photonic-electronic memory.
As an integral part of all memory applications, the speed performance of programming, reading, and erasing operations is important. Here, to determine the high-speed performance of the memory cell, we examined the operation speed by using electrical pulses with the same amplitude (4 V or 5 V) but varying pulse width (ranging from 2 ns to 2 ms). The amount of resonance peak shift is used to assess the switching performance under each applied electrical pulse, as depicted in Fig. 2c. The result shows that 90% of the maximum resonance peak shift can be achieved by a -5 V, 100 µs electrical pulse. Higher voltage generally offers a higher operating speed due to a larger electric field across the FE layer. Taking the p-type substrate into account, the switching of the HAO FE layer is easier when applying negative voltages than positive voltages because more holes in the Si waveguide are available to respond to the FE switching (see electrical characterizations of FE switching speed in the supplementary material Fig. S2). For our memory cell, negative voltages are used for the programming process since the speed for information storage is more important.
Demonstration of multi-mode and multi-level storage functions
Taking advantage of the FE material, where the external voltage bias can control the induced Pr with partial switching capability, our non-volatile photonic-electronic memory is able to realize multi-level storage in a simple manner. By applying different programming voltages, the maximum achievable peak wavelength differences and ERs can be controlled by the induced Pr. Multi-level storage, as well as the mixed-mode operation, are proved to be feasible here, with details shown in Fig. 3. The measurement circuit design is shown in Fig. 3a, where optical/electrical programming/erasing/reading functions are equipped. To induce the FE switching and programming/erasing the memory cell, it is crucial to create enough DC bias on the FE capacitor. Here in the circuit, a bias tee is used to deliver the DC voltage from the voltage input (DC port of bias tee) to the device (RF + DC port of bias tee). The DC voltage for programming/erasing can be generated either optically or electrically: (a) Optical programming/erasing is realized by two constant reverse-biased PDs, while two electrically controlled EVOAs are used to tune the optical power intensity on these two PDs. Noted that fiber-coupled PDs on separated chips are used in the proof of principle experiment. The output photocurrents from the PDs flow through a pull-up resistor, which can create DC voltages at the DC port of the bias tee. The constant positive/negative DC bias being delivered to the input of the bias tee is therefore related to the optical power on the PDs. (b) Electrical programming/erasing is realized by a voltage source that directly produces the DC voltage into the bias tee, while in the meantime, both PDs are kept in the off state by turning off the optical power using EVOA. After optical/electrical erasing/programming, our memory can be read out both optically and electrically at the same time: (a) Optical readout is conducted by having a tunable laser input aligned with a resonant peak and measuring the output power using an optical power meter, where different storage states result in different optical power outputs. (b) Electrical readout relies on sensing the capacitance using a small signal input at the RF port of the bias tee. The small signal is generated by a signal generator with a frequency of 100 kHz and a magnitude of 50 mV. The impedance of the ITO/FE/Si capacitor is changed along with the FE switching and can then be read out by the magnitude of the small signal. These working principles of optical/electrical programming/erasing/reading guide the following testing. Note that a small AC signal introduces a negligible difference in the optical reading considering an averaged power reading time of more than 10 µs. Thus, the optical reading and electrical reading can be simultaneously realized.
Multi-level storage was first demonstrated by optical reading after electrically/optically programming/erasing, as shown in Fig. 3b. The memory cell was erased by a + 4.5 V pulse before being programmed by negative voltages ranging from − 0.1 V to -4.5 V, and read under a reading voltage of 1 V. The length of the pulse is long enough to ensure the switching of the FE layer between each state. These voltage pulses for programming/erasing are generated either electrically or optically. Considering the noise and drift of the system, three states are available for this device using different programming voltages of -0.1 V, -2.1 V, and − 3.1 V, which correspond to non-switched, partially switched, and fully switched FE states, respectively. Raw data points repeating 10 times for these three states are shown in Fig. 3c, and the distribution is shown in Fig. 3d, from which we can calculate the raw bit-error-rate (RBER)47 between each consecutive state, which is not larger than 8.8×10− 3.
It should be noted that in the prototype of the device, we are unable to perform electrical readings directly on our memory cell. As shown in the microscopic image of the fabricated device of Fig. 1c, the ITO/HAO/Si stack covers not only the waveguide region but also a large portion of the Si slab. The electrical signal of FE switching is therefore buried by the noise owing to the responses of interface traps between the ITO/HAO gate stack and the Si slab48,49. Interface traps are mainly aroused from the plasma etching step of the waveguide, while the waveguide itself is unetched because it is covered by the photoresist in the plasma etching step. So, optical readings are conducted successfully because the surface of the waveguide is etch-free and guarantees a low interface trap density, which preserves all the non-volatile modulation effects resulting from the FE switching on the waveguide.
As a result, electrical reading was performed on an FE capacitor with the same ITO/HAO stack and fabrication process to examine the electrical reading function of the designed circuit. The FE capacitor was erased by + 4.5 V and then programmed by negative voltages ranging from − 0.1 V to -4.5 V. The readout is measured from frequency domain output at 100 kHz in Fig. 3e, showing two states corresponding to non-switched and fully switched FE states. An RBER of 1.17×10− 8 between the two states was calculated, as illustrated in Fig. 3f and 3g. Apart from this simple circuit for electrical reading, other methods have been reported on the FE capacitor reading in either a destructive way50 or a non-destructive way46 with better accuracy.
These RBERs all meet the requirements for utilizing low-density parity check (LDPC) error correction coding and can be smoothly lowered to less than 10− 12 by LDPC coding51,52. Besides the multi-level storage and mixed-mode operation, the simplicity of our multi-level storage realization, in which no pulse engineering is required, is another significant improvement over other implementations of non-volatile photonic-electronic memory. The memory driving system design can therefore benefit from the simplicity of the driving strategy of our memory cell.
To verify the non-volatile property as well as the reliability of our memory cell, retention, and endurance tests are conducted, as depicted in Fig. 4. In the inset of Fig. 4a, the memory cell was erased and programmed by ± 5 V pulses and read under a biasing voltage of 1 V after a time duration ranging from 1 s to 1000 s at room temperature. No obvious degradation was observed. The retention tests here show the non-volatility of our memory cells. The endurance tests were conducted on a dummy FE capacitor which excludes all the parasitic capacitance in our device. As shown in Fig. 4b, a square pulse train with a cycling frequency of 5 kHz was used to ensure effective electrical stressing and switching of the FE capacitor. The electrical field amplitudes were set to be 4 and 5 MV/cm, corresponding to the operating voltages of our memory cell. The endurance of our HAO thin film increases with a decreasing E-field. A minimum endurance of 4×104 cycles at 5 V operation voltage and 1×106 cycles at 4 V is obtained. This can be improved by interface engineering between Si and HAO layers53–55.