We show experimentally that bistable, optically-induced phase switching in germanium antimony telluride (GST) — a member of the Te-based chalcogenide alloy family upon which all of today's re-writable optical disc and phase-change RAM technologies are based — provides a platform for the engineering of non-volatile metamaterial transmission/reflection modulators (Fig. 1) for near- to mid-infrared wavelengths with thicknesses down to 1/27 of the operating wavelength. These hybrid materials provide a robust and versatile platform for a new generation of optical switching and memory devices.
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