16 - Lithium niobate on insulator for nonlinear and quantum applications

Abstract

Lithium niobate (LN), an excellent multifunctional ferroelectric crystal, has been the backbone of modern photonics for over half a century. However, the lack of dense integration on LN has hindered its development due to the weak light confinement in conventional waveguides. In recent years, the invention of lithium niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) technology has revolutionized LN-based research and industry, which has emerged as a promising candidate for future integrated photonics and quantum technologies. Devices on LNOI have shown significantly superior performance than their conventional counterparts, which opens new avenues for novel linear, nonlinear, and quantum applications. With large-scale fabrication, photonics integrated circuits on LNOI, like silicon-on-insulator photonics, can be envisioned to greatly expand the toolbox of classical and quantum light manipulation on a chip.