Abstract
Lithium niobate (LN), an outstanding and versatile material, has influenced our daily life for decades-from enabling high-speed optical communications that form the backbone of the Internet to realizing radio-frequency filtering used in our cell phones. This half-century-old material is currently embracing a revolution in thin-film LN integrated photonics. The successes of manufacturing wafer-scale, high-quality thin films of LN-on-insulator (LNOI) and breakthroughs in nanofabrication techniques have made high-performance integrated nanophotonic components possible. With rapid development in the past few years, some of these thin-film LN devices, such as optical modulators and nonlinear wavelength converters, have already outperformed their legacy counterparts realized in bulk LN crystals. Furthermore, the nanophotonic integration has enabled ultra-low-loss resonators in LN, which has unlocked many novel applications such as optical frequency combs and quantum transducers. In this review, we cover-from basic principles to the state of the art-the diverse aspects of integrated thin-film LN photonics, including the materials, basic passive components, and various active devices based on electro-optics, all-optical nonlinearities, and acousto-optics. We also identify challenges that this platform is currently facing and point out future opportunities. The field of integrated LNOI photonics is advancing rapidly and poised to make critical impacts on a broad range of applications in communication, signal processing, and quantum information.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 242-352 |
| Number of pages | 111 |
| Journal | Advances in Optics and Photonics |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 Optical Society of America.
Funding
National Science Foundation; Harvard Quantum Initiative; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; Office of Naval Research; Air Force Office of Scientific Research; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; U.S. Department of Energy; Army Research Laboratory; Army Research Office; Raytheon Company; Nokia Bell Labs; Rockwell Collins; Google; U.S. Department of Energy; Alliance for Quantum Technologies, California Institute of Technology (INQNET). Proposed integrated microwave photonic receiver. It combines LNOI passive (waveguides, high-Q resonators, arrayed waveguides/demux) and EO (modulators, isolators, frequency combs) devices with heterogeneously integrated III-V lasers and high-speed detectors. This figure is adapted from a grant proposal funded under the DARPA LUMOS program. ECL, external cavity laser; PD, photodetector. Integrated active photonic components, including lasers, amplifiers, and photodetectors, have been developed extensively in III-V materials with state-of-the-art performance. The integration of LN electro-optics and III-V components could open opportunities for optical communications, microwave photonics, and light detection and ranging (LIDAR). Such opportunities have been foreseen by several ongoing research programs supported by government funding agencies worldwide.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| AQT Intelligent Quantum Networks and Technologies | |
| Harvard Quantum Initiative | |
| Harvard University Center for Nanoscale Systems | |
| INQNET | |
| Nokia Bell Labs | |
| National Science Foundation | |
| Office of Naval Research | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Air Force Office of Scientific Research | |
| Army Research Office | |
| Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency | |
| Raytheon Company | |
| High Energy Physics | |
| Army Research Laboratory | |
| California Institute of Technology | |
| Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada |