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Boynton, Nicholas

Publications and source records attributed to Boynton, Nicholas.

6 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Heterogeneous integration of an electro-optical platform

A hybrid photonic integrated circuit and a method of its manufacture are provided. A SiP functional layer is fabricated on an SOI wafer. A lithium niobate thin film is bonded to the SiP functional layer. The silicon handle layer is removed from the SOI wafer to expose buried oxide, and at least one III-V die is bonded to the exposed buried oxide. In embodiments, at least one waveguiding component is fabricated in the SiP functional layer. In embodiments, the SiP functional layer comprises a top waveguiding layer.

Kodigala, Ashok↗
DOE OSTI2023

Buried-Electrode Hybrid Bonded Thin-Film Lithium Niobate Electro-Optic Mach-Zehnder Modulators

Hybrid bonded silicon nitride thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) at 1310 nm were designed with metal coplanar waveguide electrodes buried in the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) chip. Here, the MZM devices showed greatly improved performance compared to earlier devices of a similar design, and similar performance to comparable MZM devices with gold electrodes made on top of the TFLN layer. Both devices achieve a 3-dB electro-optic bandwidth greater than 110 GHz and voltage-driven optical extinction ratios greater than 28 dB. Half-wave voltage-length products (VπL) of 2.8 and 2.5 V∙ cm were measured for the 0.5 and 0.4 cm long buried metal and top gold electrode MZMs, respectively.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

110 GHz, 110 mW hybrid silicon-lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder modulator

High bandwidth, low voltage electro-optic modulators with high optical power handling capability are important for improving the performance of analog optical communications and RF photonic links. Here we designed and fabricated a thin-film lithium niobate (LN) Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) which can handle high optical power of 110 mW, while having 3-dB bandwidth greater than 110 GHz at 1550 nm. The design does not require etching of thin-film LN, and uses hybrid optical modes formed by bonding LN to planarized silicon photonic waveguide circuits. A high optical power handling capability in the MZM was achieved by carefully tapering the underlying Si waveguide to reduce the impact of optically-generated carriers, while retaining a high modulation efficiency. The MZM has a $V_πL$ product of 3.1 V.cm and an on-chip optical insertion loss of 1.8 dB.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Heterogeneously integrated electro-optic modulator

In an electro-optical modulator, an electro-optical modulation layer is bonded to a cladding layer that overlies a substrate. A modulation zone waveguide is optically coupled to the electro-optical modulation layer and optically coupled to an I/O waveguiding structure embedded in the cladding layer. The I/O waveguiding structure is conformed to guide input light toward the modulation zone waveguide and to guide output light away from the modulation zone waveguide.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗