OFC presentation to tout thin-film Lithium Niobate modulator performance
The organizers of OFC (Optica, IEEE Communications Society, and IEEE Photonics Society) say that the technical conference will contain a presentation that describes a thin-film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) dual-polarization in-phase and quadrature (DP-IQ) modulator with record-breaking performance. Xinlun Cai of Sun Yat-sen University will present the paper on Thursday, March 10, from 8:30 AM to 8:45 AM Pacific Time at the San Diego Convention Center.
TFLN is a subject of research in several universities, some of whom will join Cai in presenting their work. Startup HyperLight is making progress with commercializing such technology, which seeks to bring the benefits of traditionally bulky LiNOb3 modulators to photonic integrated circuits (see, for example, “Startup HyperLight debuts thin-film Lithium Niobate platform at ECOC 2021”).
Cai will describe the work of his team at Sun Yat-sen University, which says it has developed TFLN technology that exhibits record-breaking performance in half-wave voltage, modulation bandwidth, insertion loss, and single wavelength net bitrate. Cai will assert that the DP-IQ modulators will benefit coherent long-haul optical links.
"DP-IQ modulators provide access to the full amplitude-phase complex plane for data encoding and also two orthogonal polarization states," according to Cai. "Therefore, they offer an integrated transmitter solution for advanced multi-state modulation formats and polarization-division multiplexing, which are the two underpinning technologies for digital coherent transmission systems."
The Sun Yat-sen University TFLN material enables a high-index contrast waveguide and improved half-wave voltage and modulation bandwidth. It maintains lithium niobate’s resistance to amplitude-phase cross-modulation.
"In this way, we can combine all the benefits of lithium niobate with strong optical confinement, which results in very high-performance and compact optical modulators," said Cai.
"The 'Holy Grail' of optical modulator research is to make an optical modulator with ultra-high bandwidth greater than 100 GHz and ultra-low half-wave voltage of less than 1 V," Cai concluded. "By harnessing the TFLN, we successfully demonstrate an optical modulator with bandwidth greater than 110 GHz and a half-wave voltage of 1 V. These are the new benchmarks for optical modulator research."
The device could be driven directly by complementary metal oxide semiconductor circuits, the show organizers add, which would eliminate the need for driver amplifiers and reduce cost and power consumption.
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Stephen Hardy | Editorial Director and Associate Publisher, Lightwave
Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
Stephen has moderated panels at numerous events, including the Optica Executive Forum, ECOC, and SCTE Cable-Tec Expo. He also is program director for the Lightwave Innovation Reviews and the Diamond Technology Reviews.
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