High-production-rate fabrication of low-loss lithium niobate electro-optic modulators using photolithography assisted chemo-mechanical etching (PLACE)

Abstract: Integrated thin-film lithium niobate (LN) electro-optic (EO) modulators of broad bandwidth, low insertion loss, low cost and high production rate are essential elements in contemporary inter-connection industries and disruptive applications. Here, we demonstrated the design and fabri-cation of a high performance thin-film LN EO modulator using photolithography assisted chemo-mechanical etching (PLACE) technology. Our device shows a 3-dB bandwidth over 50 GHz, along with a comparable low half wave voltage-length product of 2.16 Vcm. We obtain a fiber-to-fiber insertion loss of 2.6 dB.