Nonvolatile Electro-optic Response of Graphene Driven by Ferroelectric Polarization.

Abstract

Two-dimensional materials (2DMs) have exhibited remarkably tunable optical characteristics, which have been applied for significant applications in communications, sensing, and computing. However, the reported tunable optical properties of 2DMs are almost volatile, impeding them in the applications of multifarious emerging frameworks such as programmable operation and neuromorphic computing. In this work, nonvolatile electro-optic response is developed by the graphene-Al₂O₃-In₂Se₃ heterostructure integrating with microring resonators (MRRs). In such compact devices, the optical absorption coefficient of graphene is substantially tuned by the out-of-plane ferroelectric polarization in α-In₂Se₃, resulting in a nonvolatile optical transmission in MRRs. This work demonstrates that integrating graphene with ferroelectric materials paves the way to develop nonvolatile devices in photonic circuits for emerging applications such as optical neural networks.