Tunable large free spectral range microring resonators in lithium niobate on insulator

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of tunable large free spectral range microring resonators in lithium niobate on insulator, achieving high FSR and electro-optic tuning, enabling advanced on-chip photonic filtering and nonlinear applications.

Contribution

The authors demonstrate high-performance, tunable microring resonators in LNOI with large FSR and electro-optic tuning, overcoming fabrication limitations.

Findings

FSR greater than 5 nm for 30 μm radius rings

3 pm/V electro-optic tuning of 70 μm rings

Large resonance bandwidth suitable for filtering

Abstract

Microring resonators are critical photonic components used in filtering, sensing and nonlinear applications. To date, the development of high performance microring resonators in LNOI has been limited by the sidewall angle, roughness and etch depth of fabricated rib waveguides. We present large free spectral range microring resonators patterned via electron beam lithography in high-index contrast $Z$-cut LNOI. Our microring resonators achieve an FSR greater than 5 nm for ring radius of 30 $\mu$m and a large 3 dB resonance bandwidth. We demonstrate 3 pm/V electro-optic tuning of a 70 $\mu$m-radius ring. This work will enable efficient on-chip filtering in LNOI and precede future, more complex, microring resonator networks and nonlinear field enhancement applications.