A heterogeneously integrated lithium niobate-on-silicon nitride photonic platform

oleh: Mikhail Churaev, Rui Ning Wang, Annina Riedhauser, Viacheslav Snigirev, Terence Blésin, Charles Möhl, Miles H. Anderson, Anat Siddharth, Youri Popoff, Ute Drechsler, Daniele Caimi, Simon Hönl, Johann Riemensberger, Junqiu Liu, Paul Seidler, Tobias J. Kippenberg

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Nature Portfolio 2023-06-01

Deskripsi

Abstract The availability of thin-film lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) and advances in processing have led to the emergence of fully integrated LiNbO3 electro-optic devices. Yet to date, LiNbO3 photonic integrated circuits have mostly been fabricated using non-standard etching techniques and partially etched waveguides, that lack the reproducibility achieved in silicon photonics. Widespread application of thin-film LiNbO3 requires a reliable solution with precise lithographic control. Here we demonstrate a heterogeneously integrated LiNbO3 photonic platform employing wafer-scale bonding of thin-film LiNbO3 to silicon nitride (Si3N4) photonic integrated circuits. The platform maintains the low propagation loss (<0.1 dB/cm) and efficient fiber-to-chip coupling (<2.5 dB per facet) of the Si3N4 waveguides and provides a link between passive Si3N4 circuits and electro-optic components with adiabatic mode converters experiencing insertion losses below 0.1 dB. Using this approach we demonstrate several key applications, thus providing a scalable, foundry-ready solution to complex LiNbO3 integrated photonic circuits.