First Thin-Film Lithium Tantalate Polarization Controller Enabling Reset-Free Mrad/s Tracking for Optical Interconnects

TL;DR

This paper introduces the first integrated thin-film lithium tantalate polarization controller enabling ultrafast, reset-free SOP tracking at Mrad/s speeds, significantly improving stability and performance in optical interconnects.

Contribution

It presents a novel TFLT-based polarization controller with high speed, low PDL, and a new FBGD control algorithm for reset-free operation under rapid SOP changes.

Findings

Achieves SOP tracking at speeds up to 2 Mrad/s

Maintains stable operation up to 1 Mrad/s under continuous disturbances

Reduces bit-error rates below FEC threshold in high-speed transmission

Abstract

The rapid escalation of computing power driven by large-scale artificial intelligence is placing unprecedented demands on the bandwidth, latency, and energy efficiency of data-center interconnects (DCIs). Self-homodyne coherent (SHC) transmission is a promising architecture because it preserves the spectral efficiency of coherent detection while greatly simplifying digital signal processing, but its practical deployment is critically limited by random and often ultrafast state-of-polarization (SOP) fluctuations that induce carrier fading and destabilize coherent reception. Here we report the first integrated polarization controller based on thin-film lithium tantalate (TFLT), enabling reset-free polarization tracking at Mrad/s speeds. The four-stage electro-optic device exhibits polarization-dependent loss (PDL) below 0.3 dB, a half-wave voltage below 2.5 V, high modulation bandwidth, and negligible DC drift. To accommodate the finite tuning range of integrated phase shifters, we develop a finite-boundary gradient-descent (FBGD) control algorithm that ensures reset-free SOP evolution with no phase jump. The implemented adaptive polarization controller (APC) is validated through both standalone polarization-tracking measurements and a dual-polarization 16-QAM SHC 400-Gbps transmission system. Transient polarization disturbances can be tracked at speeds up to 2 Mrad/s, while stable reset-free operation under continuous polarization disturbances is maintained up to 1 Mrad/s. This reset-free performance represents more than doubling the state of the art, while the pre-FEC bit-error rates remain below the HD-FEC threshold under realistic DCI conditions and lightning-scale polarization disturbances. These results establish TFLT as a new platform for ultrafast, low-power, reset-free, and drift-free polarization control in coherent optical interconnects and beyond.