Subvolt electro-optical modulator on thin-film lithium niobate and silicon nitride hybrid platform

A low voltage operation electro-optic modulator is critical for applications ranging from optical communications to an analog photonic link. This paper reports a hybrid silicon nitride and lithium niobate electro-optic Mach-Zehnder modulator that employs 3 dB multimode interference couplers for spli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 2020-03, Vol.45 (5), p.1112-1115
Main Authors: Ahmed, Abu Naim R, Nelan, Sean, Shi, Shouyuan, Yao, Peng, Mercante, Andrew, Prather, Dennis W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Lithium niobates
Low voltage
Mach-Zehnder interferometers
Optics
Photonics
Silicon nitride
Thin films
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Summary:A low voltage operation electro-optic modulator is critical for applications ranging from optical communications to an analog photonic link. This paper reports a hybrid silicon nitride and lithium niobate electro-optic Mach-Zehnder modulator that employs 3 dB multimode interference couplers for splitting and combining light. The presented amplitude modulator with an interaction region length of 2.4 cm demonstrates a DC half-wave voltage of only 0.875 V, which corresponds to a modulation efficiency per unit length of 2.11 V cm. The power extinction ratio of the fabricated device is approximately 30 dB, and the on-chip optical loss is about 5.4 dB.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/ol.381892