Numerical investigation of optical bistability in a nonlinear plasmonic structure containing a phase change material

Abstract

In this paper, a controllable nonlinear plasmonic structure is proposed based on a phase change material (PCM) layer to achieve tunable bistability characteristics. To this end, the Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) layer (as a PCM) is sandwiched between a thin film of Ag and a Kerr material substrate. Then, this multilayered structure is used as a substrate for the ZnSiAs2 grating whose grooves are filled with the Kerr nonlinear material. Next, the grating is covered with a layer of CaF2. In this structure, we first calculate the reflection spectrum for different crystallization fractions using the finite element method (FEM) in the linear regime. The reflectance spectrum shows a dip in the near-infrared region, which is redshifted with increasing the crystallization fraction of the GST layer. This effect results from the movement of surface plasmon resonance to longer wavelengths with increasing the crystallization fraction. Then, we find that the dip in the reflectance spectrum is redshifted with enhancing the input intensity of the incident wave for different crystallization fractions in the nonlinear regime. This behavior confirms the existence of optical bistability through the proposed structure. So, we calculate the bistability curves at a fixed operating wavelength of 1550 nm for different crystallization fractions. Our results demonstrate that as the phase transition from the amorphous to the crystalline state occurs at a fixed operating wavelength, the bistability thresholds reduce while the hysteresis width also decreases and the bistability effect eventually disappears. Therefore, for each crystallization fraction of the GST layer we find a special wavelength at which a reasonable bistability curve with a reasonable hysteresis width is obtained. This operating wavelength is shifted by 33 nm as the crystallization fraction varies from 0.2 to 0.8. Finally, the effects of increasing the thickness of the GST layer on the bistability characteristics are examined. Our results show that stronger tunability of the operating wavelength by 50 nm with variation of crystallization degree from 0.2 to 0.8 is achieved when a thicker GST layer is used instead of a thinner one.