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Phase change-regulated nonlinear optical properties of GeSb4Te7 films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering

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Abstract

Novel passive devices such as all-optical diodes and all-optical logic gates require materials with appropriate both saturable and reverse saturable absorption properties. In this work, a series of GeSb4Te7 films were prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering and annealed at different temperatures to induce phase changes. Open-aperture Z-Scan experiments revealed that GeSb4Te7 films featured a large nonlinear absorption coefficient that varied with the extent of phase change induced by the annealing temperature. To understand the underlying reason, a three-level model was developed to explain the competition between ground-state absorption and excited-state absorption during the process. The large nonlinear absorption coefficient of GeSb4Te7 films (\(\beta_{eff} \, = \, - \,20368.90\) cm/GW) shows that ternary material demonstrates outstanding nonlinear optical absorption capability. Impressively, the annealing treatment induced microstructural changes in the GeSb4Te7 films that caused a transition from reverse saturable absorption to saturable absorption, offering great potential for innovative passive nonlinear optical devices.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Prof. Haibin Zhao for effective backup.

Funding

The authors would like to express their sincere thanks for the financial supports by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60578047, 61427815) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (17ZR1402200, 13ZR1402600).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Mengqi Lv, Yiyun Zou, Xiaoxiao Song, Shubo Zhang, Tengfei Zhang, Zhen Liu, Yunhao Cai, Xintong Zhang, Shenjin Wei, Yuxiang Zheng & Jing Li

  2. College of Electronic and Optical Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Ertao Hu

  3. Key Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (Ministry of Education), Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Yuxiang Zheng & Jing Li

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  1. Mengqi Lv
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  2. Yiyun Zou
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  4. Shubo Zhang
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  12. Jing Li
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Contributions

MQL conceived the presented idea. MQL, YYZ and TFZ conducted the experiments. MQL, XXS, SBZ, XTZ, SJW, ZL, and YHC discussed the results. YXZ and JL guided the study and supervised the manuscript. JL and ETH provided the experimental equipment. All authors provided critical feedback and helped shape the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ertao Hu or Jing Li.

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Lv, M., Zou, Y., Song, X. et al. Phase change-regulated nonlinear optical properties of GeSb4Te7 films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1696 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-11094-2

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