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arXiv · 2608.15936

Monolithic high density integrated photonics on bulk lithium niobate

Zizheng Li·Harmen Smedes·Bruno Lopez-Rodriguez·Thomas Scholte·Simon Groeblacher·Iman Esmaeil Zadeh
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Abstract

Functional electro-optic (EO) tunable photonic integrated circuits are crucial to next-generation information processing and advanced computing, where ferroelectric materials such as lithium niobate (LiNbO3) provide outstanding optical properties and versatile tuning mechanisms. However, beyond achieving high-performance devices, practical deployment of LiNbO3 photonic integrated circuits requires rapid and cost-effective scale-up, which remains challenging because of the fabrication complexity and high costs of ion-sliced thin-film lithium niobate and wafer bonding processes. To address this gap, we demonstrate a fully monolithic photonic platform, amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC) on bulk LiNbO3 crystal substrate, enabling scalable, CMOS-compatible, low-cost, and high-density photonic integrated circuits without relying on thin-film LiNbO3. This integration approach breaks the long-standing cost-performance-scalability tradeoff, and intrinsically eliminates the need for sophisticated fabrication processes, including ion slicing, wafer bonding, and LiNbO3 etching. It realizes high-density, low-loss, and record high EO tuning efficiency of VpiL = 2.87 Vcm on bulk LiNbO3 crystal substrate. Furthermore, leveraging slow-light effect near photonic crystal bandgap, an 8.5-fold EO tuning efficiency enhancement is achieved, highlighting the platform's capability in confinement control and dispersion engineering.

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Zizheng Li, Harmen Smedes, Bruno Lopez-Rodriguez, Thomas Scholte, Simon Groeblacher, Iman Esmaeil Zadeh. 2026-08-16. Monolithic high density integrated photonics on bulk lithium niobate. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.15936

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