Wafer-scale low-loss lithium niobate photonic integrated circuits

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates wafer-scale fabrication of low-loss lithium niobate photonic integrated circuits, showing they are scalable and cost-effective for high-performance optical devices.

Contribution

The authors present a monolithic fabrication process for lithium niobate PICs on 4- and 6-inch wafers with ultra-smooth etching and low propagation loss, advancing toward scalable manufacturing.

Findings

Achieved 0.27 dB/cm optical propagation loss on wafer-scale.

Demonstrated uniform and smooth etching across wafers.

Proved LN PICs are scalable and cost-effective.

Abstract

Thin-film lithium niobate (LN) photonic integrated circuits (PICs) could enable ultrahigh performance in electro-optic and nonlinear optical devices. To date, realizations have been limited to chip-scale proof-of-concepts. Here we demonstrate monolithic LN PICs fabricated on 4- and 6-inch wafers with deep ultraviolet lithography and show smooth and uniform etching, achieving 0.27 dB/cm optical propagation loss on wafer-scale. Our results show that LN PICs are fundamentally scalable and can be highly cost-effective.