High-bandwidth CMOS-voltage-level electro-optic modulation of 780 nm light in thin-film lithium niobate

• Published in: arXiv.org 2022-04
• Main Authors: Celik, Oguz Tolga, Sarabalis, Christopher J, Mayor, Felix M, Stokowski, Hubert S, Herrmann, Jason F, McKenna, Timothy P, Lee, Nathan R A, Jiang, Wentao, Multani, Kevin K S, Safavi-Naeini, Amir H
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atomic clocks; Bandwidths; CMOS; Crosstalk; Electric potential; Lithium niobates; Mach-Zehnder interferometers; Photonics; Quantum computers; Qubits (quantum computing); Sapphire; Thin films; Voltage; Wave propagation; Waveguides
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2204.03138

Integrated photonics operating at visible-near-infrared (VNIR) wavelengths offer scalable platforms for advancing optical systems for addressing atomic clocks, sensors, and quantum computers. The complexity of free-space control optics causes limited addressability of atoms and ions, and this remains an impediment on scalability and cost. Networks of Mach-Zehnder interferometers can overcome challenges in addressing atoms by providing high-bandwidth electro-optic control of multiple output beams. Here, we demonstrate a VNIR Mach-Zehnder interferometer on lithium niobate on sapphire with a CMOS voltage-level compatible full-swing voltage of 4.2 V and an electro-optic bandwidth of 2.7 GHz occupying only 0.35 mm\(^2\). Our waveguides exhibit 1.6 dB/cm propagation loss and our microring resonators have intrinsic quality factors of 4.4 \(\times\) 10\(^5\). This specialized platform for VNIR integrated photonics can open new avenues for addressing large arrays of qubits with high precision and negligible cross-talk.