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Lithium niobate photonic wires
1Angewandte Physik, Universität Paderborn, 33098 Paderborn, Germany. hhu@mail.upb.de
Optics Express
|January 7, 2010
Summary
Researchers fabricated the smallest lithium niobate (LN) photonic wires using Ar milling. These sub-wavelength waveguides demonstrate potential for advanced integrated optics and photonics applications.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Photonics
- Integrated Optics
Background:
- Lithium niobate (LN) is a key material for integrated optics due to its electro-optic properties.
- Fabricating sub-wavelength photonic wires in LN is challenging but crucial for miniaturization and enhanced light-matter interaction.
Purpose of the Study:
- To fabricate and characterize the smallest reported lithium niobate (LN) photonic wires.
- To investigate the optical properties of these ultra-small LN waveguides at telecom wavelengths.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of single-crystalline LN photonic wires via Argon (Ar) milling.
- Bonding of LN film to a SiO2/LiNbO3 substrate.
- Measurement of mode intensity distributions, propagation losses, and group indices at 1.55 microm.
- Numerical evaluation of effective mode indices and end face reflectivities.
Main Results:
- Successfully fabricated LN photonic wires with cross-section dimensions down to 1 x 0.73 microm2.
- The 1 microm top width waveguide is the smallest reported LN photonic wire, with a mode size of approximately 0.4 microm2 (qTM) and 0.5 microm2 (qTE).
- Measured propagation losses of 9.9 dB/cm for quasi-Transverse Magnetic (qTM) and 12.9 dB/cm for quasi-Transverse Electric (qTE) polarization.
Conclusions:
- The demonstrated fabrication technique enables the creation of ultra-small LN photonic wires.
- These results pave the way for next-generation integrated photonic devices with enhanced performance and miniaturization.
- The characterized optical properties provide essential data for the design of LN-based photonic circuits.
