A heterogeneously integrated silicon photonic/lithium niobate travelling wave electro-optic modulator.

Abstract

Silicon photonics is a platform that enables densely integrated photonic components and systems and integration with electronic circuits. Depletion mode modulators designed on this platform suffer from a fundamental frequency response limit due to the mobility of carriers in silicon. Lithium niobate-based modulators have demonstrated high performance, but the material is difficult to process and cannot be easily integrated with other photonic components and electronics. In this manuscript, we simultaneously take advantage of the benefits of silicon photonics and the Pockels effect in lithium niobate by heterogeneously integrating silicon photonic-integrated circuits with thin-film lithium niobate samples. We demonstrate the most CMOS-compatible thin-film lithium niobate modulator to date, which has electro-optic 3 dB bandwidths of 30.6 GHz and half-wave voltages of 6.7 V×cm. These modulators are fabricated entirely in CMOS facilities, with the exception of the bonding of a thin-film lithium niobate sample post fabrication, and require no etching of lithium niobate.