Laboratory of Nanophotonics and Nanoplasmonics

Despite the high commercial success, the semiconductor industry is in search of alternative materials on the basis of which it is possible to develop and create non-volatile devices for both computing processes and for fast recording and long-term storage of information operating on new physical principles, since silicon electronics has reached its fundamental and technological limit. The optical method of processing and transmitting information is the fastest known to date. Combining the functions of computing and long-term storage of information in one element is the most important fundamental and technological task. The most promising materials for solving this problem are phase-mutable chalcogenides, the functional feature of which is a high contrast of physical properties between amorphous and crystalline states, and a high subnanosecond rate of phase transition satisfies the basic requirement for such materials. Therefore, one of the directions of the laboratory is to study the kinetics and dynamics of phase transitions in functional phase-changing materials depending on the parameters of external initiating action (laser, electric, thermal), which will allow us to study the fundamental mechanisms of reversible phase transition, as well as the ability to control its speed, which is extremely important for creating high-speed photonic and optical computing devices based on the base of phase-changing materials.