{"title":"Alleviation of DC drift in a thin-film lithium niobate modulator utilizing Ar<sup>+</sup> ion milling.","authors":"Jiakang Shi, Zhilin Ye, Zhen Liu, Zhong Yan, Kunpeng Jia, Liqiang Zhang, Daohan Ge, Shining Zhu","doi":"10.1364/OL.549975","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) modulator is among the most critical devices in photonic integrated circuits (PICs), owing to its large modulation bandwidth, low optical loss, and high extinction ratio. However, it suffers from DC drift issues at low frequencies or long timescales. Here, we have successfully alleviated the DC drift effect of the electro-optical phase shifter (EOPS) at low frequencies by employing a high-energy Ar <sup>+</sup> ion milling preprocessing. This EOPS can stably output square wave modulation signals at a frequency of 1 Hz, and the output signal exhibits no DC drift under DC voltage modulation within 1 h. Compared with the thermo-optical phase shifter (TOPS), the optimized EOPS not only has higher modulation rate but also exhibits the same stability at low frequency. Furthermore, we applied this ion milling technique to produce a TFLN modulator. At a DC bias voltage of 4.5 V, the bandwidth of the modulator is above 40 GHz and remained a stable output within 30 min.</p>","PeriodicalId":19540,"journal":{"name":"Optics letters","volume":"50 5","pages":"1703-1706"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Optics letters","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.549975","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"OPTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) modulator is among the most critical devices in photonic integrated circuits (PICs), owing to its large modulation bandwidth, low optical loss, and high extinction ratio. However, it suffers from DC drift issues at low frequencies or long timescales. Here, we have successfully alleviated the DC drift effect of the electro-optical phase shifter (EOPS) at low frequencies by employing a high-energy Ar + ion milling preprocessing. This EOPS can stably output square wave modulation signals at a frequency of 1 Hz, and the output signal exhibits no DC drift under DC voltage modulation within 1 h. Compared with the thermo-optical phase shifter (TOPS), the optimized EOPS not only has higher modulation rate but also exhibits the same stability at low frequency. Furthermore, we applied this ion milling technique to produce a TFLN modulator. At a DC bias voltage of 4.5 V, the bandwidth of the modulator is above 40 GHz and remained a stable output within 30 min.
期刊介绍：
The Optical Society (OSA) publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed articles in its portfolio of journals, which serve the full breadth of the optics and photonics community.
Optics Letters offers rapid dissemination of new results in all areas of optics with short, original, peer-reviewed communications. Optics Letters covers the latest research in optical science, including optical measurements, optical components and devices, atmospheric optics, biomedical optics, Fourier optics, integrated optics, optical processing, optoelectronics, lasers, nonlinear optics, optical storage and holography, optical coherence, polarization, quantum electronics, ultrafast optical phenomena, photonic crystals, and fiber optics. Criteria used in determining acceptability of contributions include newsworthiness to a substantial part of the optics community and the effect of rapid publication on the research of others. This journal, published twice each month, is where readers look for the latest discoveries in optics.
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