Toward Large-Scale Photonic Chips Using Low-Anisotropy Thin-Film Lithium-Tantalate.

Photonic manipulation of large-capacity data with the advantages of high speed and low power consumption is a promising solution for explosive growth demands in the era of post-Moore. A well-developed lithium-niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) platform has been widely explored for high-performance electro-optic (EO) modulators to bridge electrical and optical signals. However, the photonic waveguides on the x-cut LNOI platform suffer serious polarization-mode conversion/coupling issues because of strong birefringence, making it hard to realize large-scale integration.

Anisotropy-free arrayed waveguide gratings on X-cut thin film lithium niobate platform of in-plane anisotropy.

Arrayed waveguide grating is a versatile and scalable integrated light dispersion device, which has been widely adopted in various applications, including, optical communications and optical sensing. Recently, thin-film lithium niobate emerges as a promising photonic integration platform, due to its ability of shrinking largely the size of typical lithium niobate based optical devices. This would also enable multifunctional photonic integrated chips on a single lithium niobate substrate.