Low Energy Consumption GeTe Phase-Change Radio Frequency Switch with Direct Heating of Conductive Filament

The GeTe phase-change RF switch with Ag conductive filament (CF) as heater is fabricated. The Ag CF as heater can effectively reduce the energy consumption of the switch. In particular, the set energy consumption is as low as 19.2 nJ to set the switch. In durability test, the resistance ratio exceeds three orders of magnitude and remains almost constant over 1000 cycles. The insertion loss of the phase-change RF switch based on GeTe is less than 0.8 dB and the isolation is greater than 20 dB up to 67 GHz. The cut-off frequency of the switch is as high as 15 THz. This work demonstrates that the modulated CF can be used as the heater for phase change material (PCM), providing a new micro directly heated structure for low energy consumption phase-change RF switch.