Thin-film lithium tantalate for ultraviolet integrated electro-optic modulator

Abstract

The realization of integrated, high-speed ultraviolet (UV) modulation is pivotal for the advancement of quantum information processing, portable atomic clocks, and secure solar-blind communications. While mature photonic platforms have facilitated sophisticated system-level integration across visible and infrared spectra, high-speed active modulation in UV remains with traditional bulk crystals. Consequently, a scalable integrated solution that simultaneously combines low insertion loss and extreme compactness with high modulation efficiency has remained challenging. Here, we report the first integrated UV electro-optic modulator on a thin-film lithium tantalate (TFLT) platform. By employing a compact lumped-electrode design, we achieve a record-low V{\pi}L of 85 mV\cdot cm at 375 nm, providing an up to four orders of magnitude improvement in terms of bandwidth/V{\pi} L over bulk technologies. The device demonstrates a robust extinction ratio of 22.7 dB, a low insertion loss of 1.3 dB, and a V{\pi} of 4.2V. Although the measured 3-dB bandwidth of 922 MHz is currently limited by photodetector performance, the small device footprint of 1.16 mm and electrode design of 200 {\mu}m indicate intrinsic potential for high-speed operation beyond 67 GHz which is confirmed by the electrical-to-electrical response. This work establishes TFLT as a disruptive platform for wafer-scale compatible active UV photonics, enabling the next generation of scalable quantum and communication systems.