Recently, interest in programmable photonics integrated circuits has grown as
a potential hardware framework for deep neural networks, quantum computing, and
field programmable arrays (FPGAs). However, these circuits are constrained by
the limited tuning speed and large power consumption of the phase shifters
used. In this paper, introduced for the first time are memresonators, or
memristors heterogeneously integrated with silicon photonic microring
resonators, as phase shifters with non-volatile memory. These devices are
capable of retention times of 12 hours, switching voltages lower than 5 V, an
endurance of 1,000 switching cycles. Also, these memresonators have been
switched using voltage pulses as short as 300 ps with a record low switching
energy of 0.15 pJ. Furthermore, these memresonators are fabricated on a
heterogeneous III-V/Si platform capable of integrating a rich family of active,
passive, and non-linear optoelectronic devices, such as lasers and detectors,
directly on-chip to enable in-memory photonic computing and further advance the
scalability of integrated photonic processor circuits