Integrated Silicon Carbide Optical Switch Can Be Thermally Tuned

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have integrated a microheater and a microring resonator onto a silicon carbide (SiC) chip, creating a photonic integrated chip that can be thermally tuned by applying an electric signal. The approach could one day be used to create a range of reconfigurable devices such as phase-shifters and tunable optical couplers needed for networking applications and quantum information processing. SiC has defects that can be optically controlled and manipulated as qubits, making it an attractive material for quantum computing and communication applications. It is biocompatible and can operate at wavelengths from the visible to infrared. The new work builds on the researchers’...