Phys.org June 15, 2022
While wavelength-selective systems have widely proliferated, polarization-addressable active photonics has not seen notable progress, primarily because tunable and polarization-selective nanostructures have been elusive. Researchers in the UK have introduced hybridized-active-dielectric (HAD) nanowires to achieve polarization-selective tunability. They demonstrated the ability to use polarization as a parameter to selectively modulate the conductance of individual nanowires within a multi-nanowire system. By using polarization as the tunable vector, they showed matrix-vector multiplication in a nanowire device configuration. According to the researchers while the HAD nanowires use phase-change materials as the active material, this concept can be generalized to other active materials hybridized with dielectrics and thus has the potential in a broad range of applications from photonic memories and routing to polarization-multiplexed computing…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Polarization-selective switching in a HAD nanowire. Credit: SCIENCE ADVANCES, VOL. 8, NO. 24, 2022