Monolithic thin film lithium niobate electro-optic modulator with over 110 GHz bandwidth

High-performance thin film lithium niobate (LN) electro-optic modulators with low cost are in demand. Based on photolithography and wet etching, we experimentally demonstrate a thin film LN Mach-Zehnder modulator with a 3 dB bandwidth exceeding 110 GHz, which shows the potential of boosting the throughput and reducing cost. The fabricated modulator also exhibits a comparable low half-wave voltage-length product of similar to 2.37 V . cm, a high extinction ratio of >23 dB, and the propagation loss of optical waveguides of similar to 0.2 dB/cm. Besides, six-level pulse amplitude modulation up to 250 Gb/s is successfully achieved.

Automated summary

In this study, a high-performance and low-cost thin film lithium niobate electro-optic modulator was successfully fabricated using photolithography and wet etching techniques. The modulator demonstrated a large bandwidth, low half-wave voltage-length product, and high optical waveguide propagation loss.