Ka-band thin film lithium niobate photonic integrated optoelectronic oscillator

Photonics integration of an optoelectronic oscillator(OEO)on a chip is attractive for fabricating low cost,compact,low power consumption,and highly reliable microwave sources,which has been demonstrated recently in silicon on insulator(SOI)and indium phosphide(InP)platforms at X-band around 8 GHz.Here we demonstrate the first integration of OEOs on the thin film lithium niobate(TFLN)platform,which has the advantages of lower Vπ,no chirp,wider frequency range,and less sensitivity to temperature.We have successfully realized two different OEOs operating at Ka-band,with phase noises even lower than those of the X-band OEOs on SOI and InP platforms.One is a fixed frequency OEO at 30 GHz realized by integrating a Mach–Zehnder modulator(MZM)with an add-drop microring resonator(MRR),and the other is a tunable frequency OEO at 20–35 GHz realized by integrating a phase modulator(PM)with a notch MRR.Our work marks the first step of using TFLN to fabricate integrated OEOs with high frequency,small size,low cost,wide range tunability,and potentially low phase noise.

Ultra-broadband and low-loss edge coupler for highly efficient second harmonic generation in thin-film lithium niobate

Thin-film lithium niobate is a promising material platform for integrated nonlinear photonics,due to its high refractive index contrast with the excellent optical properties.However,the high refractive index contrast and correspondingly small mode field diameter limit the attainable coupling between the waveguide and fiber.In second harmonic generation processes,lack of efficient fiber-chip coupling schemes covering both the fundamental and second harmonic wavelengths has greatly limited the overall efficiency.We design and fabricate an ultra-broadband tri-layer edge coupler with a high coupling efficiency.The coupler allows efficient coupling of 1 dB∕facet at 1550 nm and 3 dB∕facet at 775 nm.This enables us to achieve an ultrahigh overall second harmonic generation normalized efficiency(fiber-to-fiber)of 1027%W^(−1)cm^(−2)(on-chip second harmonic efficiency∼3256%W^(−1)cm^(−2))in a 5-mm-long periodically-poled lithium niobate waveguide,which is two to three orders of magnitude higher than that in state-of-the-art devices.

Bias-drift-free Mach–Zehnder modulators based on a heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate platform

Optical modulators have been and will continue to be essential devices for energy-and cost-efficient optical communication networks.Heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate modulators have demonstrated promising performances of low optical loss,low drive voltage,and large modulation bandwidth.However,DC bias drift is a major drawback of optical modulators using lithium niobate as the active electro-optic material.Here,we demonstrate high-speed and bias-drift-free Mach–Zehnder modulators based on the heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate platform.The devices combine stable thermo-optic DC biases in silicon and ultra-fast electro-optic modulation in lithium niobate,and exhibit a low insertion loss of 1.8 d B,a low half-wave voltage of 3 V,an electro-optic modulation bandwidth of at least 70 GHz,and modulation data rates up to 128 Gb/s.