Breaking the bandwidth limit of a high-quality-factor ring modulator based on thin-film lithium niobate

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.470596
• Publication Date: 2022-09-21T20:00:09Z
• Authors: Yu Xue; Ranfeng Gan; Kaixuan Chen; Gengxin Chen; Ziliang Ruan; Junwei Zhang; Jie Liu; Daoxin Dai; Changjian Guo; Liu Liu
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

Growing global data traffic requires high-performance modulators with a compact size, large bandwidth, low optical loss, and small power consumption. A careful trade-off among these parameters usually has to be made when designing such device. Here, we propose demonstrate an electro-optic ring modulator on the thin-film lithium niobate platform without compromising between any performances. The device exhibits on-chip loss of about 0.15 dB high intrinsic quality-factor (Q-factor) <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mn>7.7</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> <mml:mn>5</mml:mn> </mml:msup> </mml:math> . Since pure coupling modulation is employed, photon lifetime no longer limiting factor for speed. bandwidth obtained roll-off up 67 GHz. device, footprint <mml:mn>3.4</mml:mn> <mml:mspace width="thickmathspace"/> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi> <mml:mn>0.7</mml:mn> , also half-wave voltage 1.75 V, corresponding length product <mml:mn>0.35</mml:mn> mathvariant="normal">V</mml:mi> <mml:mo>⋅</mml:mo> mathvariant="normal">c</mml:mi> considering 2-mm-long section. Driverless transmission 240 Gb/s demonstrated peak-to-peak driving 0.75 V.