Optical circulators enable bidirectional transmission of light and play an important role in data centers, communication networks and LIDAR. The integration of optical circulators is currently one of the thorny issues limiting the full integration of optical systems, and the usual schemes require hybrid integration of magneto-optical materials to break the optical reciprocity. In this work, we propose a thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) optical circulator consisting of a traveling-wave electrode modulator (TWEM) and micro-ring resonators (MRRs). It realizes optical non-reciprocity based on the phase accumulation asymmetry of forward and backward traveling wave modulation, and adjusts the path of light with the help of the MRRs. The circulator has four optical channels to realize the light propagation along the 1-2-3-4-1 spatial sequence. The calculated isolation of each channel is greater than 20 dB, and the channel loss is less than 3 dB. Our scheme is wavelength-tunable, scalable, and process-friendly, and provides a promising implementation route for all-optical integration.
A filling material based on a similar refractive index with SiN is designed as the mode converter for thin film lithium niobate (TFLN). Such a design can realize an output mode field compatible with different sizes ranging from 3.5 um-9.2 um. The double-layer mode converter core with SiN has a similar height as the ridge waveguide of TFLN, which is helpful to increase the conversion efficiency. An overall coupling loss of less than 0.6 dB was achieved theoretically at 1310 nm for both modes. The proposed scheme avoids the disadvantage of high reflection when the inclined TFLN section result from dry-etching is directly used as the coupling end face and can improve the performance of integrated TFLN electro-optic modulation on the chip level. Three-dimensional simulation results show that the designed structure is insensitive to fabrication tolerance, which provides a feasible solution for reducing the volume of integrated devices, increasing overall performance and high-density integration.
Periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) is a promising platform for realizing high-speed active polarization mode conversion. Especially, the development of thin-film PPLN techniques drives related devices to lower power consumption, higher performance and more integration. However, the wavelength shifting with the temperature variation is still a problem that brings instability and impedes modulation efficiency. In this paper, we first analyzed the temperature characteristics of a well-designed z-cut polarization mode converter based on thin-film PPLN. The simulated modulation voltage is smaller than 5V. Then a temperature-insensitive device was proposed with different coating materials of negative thermo-optic coefficients. Compared to the structure without coating, the wavelength shifting decreases from 0.25nm/°C to 0.07nm/°C, in the meantime, the modulation voltage can still be kept smaller than 5V or even be reduced slightly.
A broadband TM-pass polarizer is proposed with the structure of graphene-incorporated rib-loaded LNOI waveguide. As graphene is a 2D material, it only brings loss to the optical mode with polarization direction parallel to graphene’s surface plane. By incorporating graphene onto the interface of LNOI platform and rib loading material, graphene mainly brings optical loss to TE mode. The proposed device can obtain high polarization extinction ratio ⪆40 dB while keep a low insertion loss < 0.5 dB to the TM mode. Since graphene has a wideband light absorption from visible to infrared, the working wavelength range of this device is broadband. The fabrication process of proposed polarizer is CMOScompatible, and it can be integrated into LNOI PIC. This polarizer can be applied for LNOI modulator and LNOI-based fiber gyroscope system.
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