Xu Mengyue, He Mingbo, Zhang Hongguang, Jian Jian, Pan Ying, Liu Xiaoyue, Chen Lifeng, Meng Xiangyu, Chen Hui, Li Zhaohui, Xiao Xi, Yu Shaohua, Yu Siyuan, Cai Xinlun
State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies and School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-sen University, 510006, Guangzhou, China.
National Information Optoelectronics Innovation Center, China Information and Communication Technologies Group Corporation (CICT), 430074, Wuhan, China.
Nat Commun. 2020 Aug 6;11(1):3911. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-17806-0.
The coherent transmission technology using digital signal processing and advanced modulation formats, is bringing networks closer to the theoretical capacity limit of optical fibres, the Shannon limit. The in-phase/quadrature electro-optic modulator that encodes information on both the amplitude and the phase of light, is one of the underpinning devices for the coherent transmission technology. Ideally, such modulator should feature a low loss, low drive voltage, large bandwidth, low chirp and compact footprint. However, these requirements have been only met on separate occasions. Here, we demonstrate integrated thin-film lithium niobate in-phase/quadrature modulators that fulfil these requirements simultaneously. The presented devices exhibit greatly improved overall performance (half-wave voltage, bandwidth and optical loss) over traditional lithium niobate counterparts, and support modulation data rate up to 320 Gbit s. Our devices pave new routes for future high-speed, energy-efficient, and cost-effective communication networks.
采用数字信号处理和先进调制格式的相干传输技术，正使网络更接近光纤的理论容量极限——香农极限。在光的幅度和相位上都对信息进行编码的同相/正交电光调制器，是相干传输技术的基础器件之一。理想情况下，这种调制器应具有低损耗、低驱动电压、大带宽、低啁啾和小尺寸的特点。然而，这些要求只是在不同情况下分别得到了满足。在此，我们展示了能同时满足这些要求的集成薄膜铌酸锂同相/正交调制器。所展示的器件相比于传统铌酸锂器件，在整体性能（半波电压、带宽和光损耗）方面有了极大提升，并支持高达320 Gbit/s的调制数据速率。我们的器件为未来高速、节能且经济高效的通信网络开辟了新途径。
