Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Bahadori, Meisam
• Yang, Yansong
• Hassanien, Ahmed E.
• Goddard, Lynford L.
• Gong, Songbin

Titel

Ultra-efficient and fully isotropic monolithic microring modulators in a thin-film lithium niobate photonics platform

Ist Teil von

• Optics express, 2020-09, Vol.28 (20), p.29644-29661

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

EZB Free E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The large electro-optic coefficient, r 33 , of thin-film lithium niobate (LN) on insulator makes it an excellent material platform for high-efficiency optical modulators. Using the fundamental transverse magnetic optical mode in Z-cut LN enables isotropic in-plane devices; however, realizing a strong vertical electric field to capitalize on r 33 has been challenging. Here we present a symmetric electrode configuration to boost the vertical field strength inside a fully-etched single-mode LN waveguide. We use this design paradigm to demonstrate an ultra-compact fully isotropic microring modulator with a high electro-optic tuning efficiency of 9 pm/V, extinction ratio of 20 dB, and modulation bandwidth beyond 28 GHz. Under quasi-static operation, the tuning efficiency of the modulator reaches 20 pm/V. Fast, efficient, high-contrast modulation will be critical in future optical communication systems while large quasi-static efficiency will enable post-fabrication trimming, thermal compensation, and even complete reconfiguration of microring-based sensor arrays and photonic integrated circuits.