Ultra-high-linearity integrated lithium niobate electro-optic modulators

作者：Feng, Hanke; Zhang, Ke; Sun, Wenzhao; Ren, Yangming; Zhang, Yiwen; Zhang, Wenfu; Wang, Cheng^*

来源：Photonics Research, 2022, 10(10): 2366-2373.

DOI：10.1364/PRJ.464650

• SILICON
• GENERATION
• BANDWIDTH
• PHOTONICS

Integrated lithium niobate (LN) photonics is a promising platform for future chip-scale microwave photonics systems owing to its unique electro-optic properties, low optical loss, and excellent scalability. A key enabler for such systems is a highly linear electro-optic modulator that could faithfully convert analog electrical signals into optical signals. In this work, we demonstrate a monolithic integrated LN modulator with an ultra-high spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 120.04 dB . Hz(4/5) at 1 GHz, using a ring-assisted Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration. The excellent synergy between the intrinsically linear electro-optic response of LN and an optimized linearization strategy allows us to fully suppress the cubic terms of third-order intermodulation distortions (IMD3) without active feedback controls, leading to similar to 20 dB improvement over previous results in the thin-film LN platform. Our ultra-high-linearity LN modulators could become a core building block for future large-scale functional microwave photonic integrated circuits by further integration with other high-performance components like low-loss delay lines, tunable filters, and phase shifters available on the LN platform.

• 单位
  中国科学院; 中国科学院研究生院