Heterogeneous III-V/Si Micro-Ring Laser Array with Multi-State Non-Volatile Memory for Ternary Content-Addressable Memories

In this work, we introduce programmable memory elements embedded within III-V/Si light sources which facilitate non-volatile wavelength tuning. These non-volatile III-V/Si micro-ring lasers (MRLs) exhibit non-volatile wavelength shifts of ~ 80 pm with ~ 40 dB signal extinction ratio while consuming 0 electrical static tuning power. An array of 5 cascaded MRLs is also demonstrated with each laser capable of 4 programmable non-volatile states, thus yielding 1024 unique states altogether. Write/erase operations were performed up to 100 cycles with non-volatile time duration lasting up to 24 hours and most likely beyond. We also explore the use of these non-volatile MRLs as storage elements in wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) enabled optical ternary content-addressable memory (O-TCAM) search applications. As a result, this work provides new opportunity for realizing photonic memory applications in next generation non-volatile photonic systems.