Suspended thin-film lithium niobate modulator for broadband mid-infrared light modulation and frequency comb generation.
10 affiliations
- 1Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
- 2Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
- 3PHY Research Lab, Intel lab, Hillsboro, OR, USA.
- 4Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA.
- 5TOPTICA Photonics Inc., Pittsford, NY, USA.
- 6School of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel.
- 7Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Holon Institute of Technology, Holon, Israel.
- 8Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. [email protected].
- 9Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. [email protected].
- 10Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA. [email protected].
Abstract
The mid-infrared (MIR) spectral regime is central to applications including remote sensing, precision spectroscopy, higher harmonic generation, and free-space optical communication. However, coherent and broadband MIR modulation remains challenging owing to high optical loss, limited bandwidth, and large drive voltages in existing platforms. Here, we overcome the challenges by deploying a suspended thin-film lithium-niobate (TFLN) based electro-optic (EO) platform co-designed with high-performance traveling-wave microwave (MW) electrodes. We demonstrate a record-low Vπ,DC of 2.3 to 4.3 V over a broadband MIR bandwidth from 2.4 to 3.6 μm, and a 2.3-dB EO bandwidth of 40 GHz (extracted 3-dB bandwidth of 52 GHz), yielding a figure-of-merit of 19.3 GHz/V-more than an order of magnitude higher than the state-of-the-art. We demonstrate, for the first time, high-frequency Vπ,MW of 4.5-6.5 V in the 27-34 GHz range, and frequency-agile MIR EO frequency comb generation with a 10-dB optical bandwidth over 0.8 THz using a suspended phase modulator of 4-cm active modulation length. We further validate the platform in a free-space optical communication link. Our results establish a monolithic MIR photonic platform capable of powerful EO modulation and spectral synthesis, and present a significant step towards reconfigurable MIR sensing and communication systems on chip.
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BibTeX
@article{lee2026suspended,
title = {{Suspended thin-film lithium niobate modulator for broadband mid-infrared light modulation and frequency comb generation.}},
author = {Chun-Ho Lee and Xinyi Ren and Xinzhou Su and Wonho Lee and Zile Jiang and Yue Yu and Huibin Zhou and Yue Zuo and Shaoyuan Ou and Reshma Kopparapu and Adam T Heiniger and Moshe Tur and Alan E Willner and Zaijun Chen and Mengjie Yu},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-77674-y},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42897127},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Suspended thin-film lithium niobate modulator for broadband mid-infrared light modulation and frequency comb generation.
AU - Chun-Ho Lee
AU - Xinyi Ren
AU - Xinzhou Su
AU - Wonho Lee
AU - Zile Jiang
AU - Yue Yu
AU - Huibin Zhou
AU - Yue Zuo
AU - Shaoyuan Ou
AU - Reshma Kopparapu
AU - Adam T Heiniger
AU - Moshe Tur
AU - Alan E Willner
AU - Zaijun Chen
AU - Mengjie Yu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
JO - Nature communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-77674-y
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42897127
AB - The mid-infrared (MIR) spectral regime is central to applications including remote sensing, precision spectroscopy, higher harmonic generation, and free-space optical communication. However, coherent and broadband MIR modulation remains challenging owing to high optical loss, limited bandwidth, and large drive voltages in existing platforms. Here, we overcome the challenges by deploying a suspended thin-film lithium-niobate (TFLN) based electro-optic (EO) platform co-designed with high-performance traveling-wave microwave (MW) electrodes. We demonstrate a record-low Vπ,DC of 2.3 to 4.3 V over a broadband MIR bandwidth from 2.4 to 3.6 μm, and a 2.3-dB EO bandwidth of 40 GHz (extracted 3-dB bandwidth of 52 GHz), yielding a figure-of-merit of 19.3 GHz/V-more than an order of magnitude higher than the state-of-the-art. We demonstrate, for the first time, high-frequency Vπ,MW of 4.5-6.5 V in the 27-34 GHz range, and frequency-agile MIR EO frequency comb generation with a 10-dB optical bandwidth over 0.8 THz using a suspended phase modulator of 4-cm active modulation length. We further validate the platform in a free-space optical communication link. Our results establish a monolithic MIR photonic platform capable of powerful EO modulation and spectral synthesis, and present a significant step towards reconfigurable MIR sensing and communication systems on chip.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -