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Low-power and compact phase shifters are crucial for large photonic circuits, both
to cope with variability and to create programmable waveguide circuits
scaling to thousands of tuning elements. This work demonstrates a
liquid crystal phase shifter where there is a lateral silicon
electrode "rail" on one side of the waveguide core.
Using this architecture, a strong quasi-static electric field
E
actuation
can be applied over the gap, which is
filled with liquid crystal cladding material, with modest voltages.
Because the mode is largely confined in the waveguide, optical losses
are limited, compared to earlier experiments with slot waveguides. The
liquid crystal is deposited locally on three different device
variations using inkjet printing. The local deposition avoids unwanted
interference of the liquid crystal with other optical components such
as grating couplers. Measurements show similar trends as simulations
of the liquid crystal orientations. For one device with a length of 50
µm
, a phase shift of almost
0.9
π
is shown at 10
V
RMS
. We also discuss the challenges with
this first demonstration of this phase shifter geometry using a
silicon side-rail as an electrode.