Thin Films of Lithium Niobate for High Efficiency Electro-Optic Modulators

In the past twenty-five years, electro-optic modulator technology has made significant advances in terms of performance. Modulator bandwidth, a key technical parameter, has been extended to 40 gigahertz in the commercial world and to 100 gigahertz and beyond in research laboratories. The greatest problem has been to achieve such bandwidths while still maintaining low drive switching voltage, low insertion loss, high linearity and high extinction ratio. Material electro-optic coefficient, optical loss, dielectric loss and permittivity all contribute to these parameters, with lithium niobate currently representing the best balance of materials properties. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project develops novel materials processing techniques that extract the maximum possible performance out of the lithium niobate electro-optic material. The new technology promises to substantially improve the performance capability of existing electro-optic modulators for Navy platforms.