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Pablo Orellana Questions Research Article 3

The document summarizes a research article that analyzes nanophotonic lithium niobate electro-optic modulators. The article proposes using a nanoscale fabrication approach to make lithium niobate modulators much more compact and power efficient than conventional designs. The results demonstrated that lithium niobate modulators designed and fabricated at the nanoscale using techniques like plasma deposition and etching achieved high bandwidth, excellent linearity, low operating voltage, and good temperature stability. This nanophotonic approach allows for increased modulator arm lengths while maintaining high electro-optic bandwidth and low modulation voltages.

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17 views2 pages

Pablo Orellana Questions Research Article 3

The document summarizes a research article that analyzes nanophotonic lithium niobate electro-optic modulators. The article proposes using a nanoscale fabrication approach to make lithium niobate modulators much more compact and power efficient than conventional designs. The results demonstrated that lithium niobate modulators designed and fabricated at the nanoscale using techniques like plasma deposition and etching achieved high bandwidth, excellent linearity, low operating voltage, and good temperature stability. This nanophotonic approach allows for increased modulator arm lengths while maintaining high electro-optic bandwidth and low modulation voltages.

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pablo orellana
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Research article analysis: Nanophotonic lithium niobate electro-optic

modulators, C. Wang et al, Optics Express 26(2) 2018

Name:
Pablo ORELLANA

I-Questions:

1. Which physical effect is used in the work reported to obtain modulation of the light
propagating in the waveguide?

Nanophotonic lithium niobate electro-optic modulators use the electro-optic effect (Pockels
effect) to achieve modulation of light in the waveguide.
The electro-optic effect is a phenomenon where a material's refractive index can change in
reaction to an applied electric field.
In these modulators, a voltage is applied to the lithium niobate material that creates an
electric field and changes the waveguide's refractive index. The light that is travelling through
the waveguide can be modulated and controlled thanks to this change in refractive index.

2. Can we use the same physical effect in silicon?

No, we cannot use the electro-optic effect (Pockels effect) in silicon material directly.
However, we can still use silicon for modulators but from others switching mechanisms
causing a change in its refractive index through free carrier concentration variations
(electrons or holes), being the holes more efficient.
The difference is that the silicon modulators are intrinsically nonlinear while in the LN
material a change in the electric field is linearly proportional to the refractive index.

3. Which kind of interferometric structures are used and why?

The Mach Zehnder interferometers are used to modulate the intensity of light by controlling
the phase difference between the two arms of the interferometer, the constructive or
destructive interference of the light waves can be adjusted, leading to modulation of the
output intensity at the Y-combiner.

4. Which figure of merit is used to evaluate the modulator efficiency?

• Speed (data rate)


• Bandwidth
• Losses
• Size (small footprint)
II-Analysis:

Summarize the publication in about ten lines: problem, method used to solve the problem, results
obtained.

The size of traditional Lithium Niobate modulators makes it not suitable for modern optical links.

The method proposed in this article is using a different fabrication approach (nanoscale), thus we can
make the Lithium Niobate modulators much more compact and power efficient than the
conventional Lithium Niobate modulators.

The results obtained were that LN modulators designed and fabricated at nanoscale following the
good practices such as the layering via plasma enhanced chemical deposition, electro-beam
lithography, etching show high bandwidth, excellent linearity, low operating voltage and good
temperature stability. It is seen also, that the combination of the high electro-optic efficiency and
low propagation loss in the LN platform with a phase-matched RF transmission line could further
increase the MZI arm length to > 2 cm while the electro-optic bandwidth keeps high. This will lead to
devices with ultra-high bandwidth (> 60 GHz) and low modulation voltage (< 1 V)

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