Integrated, ultrafast all-optical polariton transistors with sub-wavelength grating microcavities

Pietro Tassan; Darius Urbonas; Bartos Chmielak; Jens Bolten; Thorsten Wahlbrink; Max C. Lemme; Michael Forster; Ullrich Scherf; Rainer F. Mahrt; Thilo Stöferle

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-02050-2

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Integrated, ultrafast all-optical polariton transistors with sub-wavelength grating microcavities

Original Articles

- Integrated, ultrafast all-optical polariton transistors with sub-wavelength grating microcavities
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 15, Issue 2, Pages: 451-459(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.IBM Research Europe – Zurich, Rüschlikon, Switzerland
  2.Photonics Laboratory, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, Switzerland
  3.AMO GmbH, Aachen, Germany
  4.Chair of Electronic Devices, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
  5.Macromolecular Chemistry Group and Wuppertal Center for Smart Materials & Systems (CM@S), Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
- Author bio：
  
  Darius Urbonas (dar@zurich.ibm.com)
  Thilo Stöferle (tof@zurich.ibm.com)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-02050-2
  CLC：
- Received：10 March 2025，
  
  Revised：2025-08-27，
  
  Accepted：15 September 2025，
  
  Online First：12 January 2026，
  
  Published：28 February 2026
- Accepted：
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Tassan, P. et al. Integrated, ultrafast all-optical polariton transistors with sub-wavelength grating microcavities. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 451-459 (2026).
DOI：

Tassan, P. et al. Integrated, ultrafast all-optical polariton transistors with sub-wavelength grating microcavities. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 451-459 (2026). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-02050-2.

摘要

Abstract

All-optical logic has the potential to overcome the operation speed barrier that has persisted in electronic circuits for two decades. However

the development of scalable architectures has been prevented so far by the lack of materials with sufficiently strong nonlinear interactions needed to realize compact and efficient ultrafast all-optical switches with optical gain. Microcavities with embedded organic material in the strong light-matter interaction regime have recently enabled all-optical transistors operating at room temperature with picosecond switching times. However

the vertical cavity geometry

which is predominantly used in polaritonics

is not suitable for complex circuits with on-chip coupled transistors. Here

by leveraging state-of-the-art silicon photonics technology

we have achieved exciton-polariton condensation at ambient conditions in ful

ly integrated high-index contrast sub-wavelength grating microcavities filled with a π-conjugated polymer as optically active material. We demonstrate ultrafast all-optical transistor action by coupling two resonators and utilizing seeded polariton condensation. With a device area as small as 2 × 2 µm

we realize picosecond switching and amplification up to 60x

with extinction ratio up to 8:1. This compact ultrafast transistor device with in-plane integration is a key component for a scalable platform for all-optical logic circuits that could operate two orders of magnitude faster than electronic counterparts.

关键词

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references

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