Glass is a promising material for post silicon era and future hybrid Electronics-Photonics technology

Silicon (Si) based microelectronics, that had revolutionized electronics, computing and communications, has reached its limits and researchers are exploring various technologies to replace silicon, that can satisfy humanity’s need for faster, smaller, greener and more powerful computers. One of class of materials, that are being explored are Phase-change materials (or PCMs) that can switch between two structural phases with different electrical states, one crystalline and conducting and the other glassy and insulating, in billionths of a second.