Feature
Integrated Optical Devices in Lithium Niobate
Researchers have developed an array of new optical devices based on lithium niobate, including waveguide structures, electro-optical wavelength filters and polarization controllers, lasers with remarkable properties, nonlinear frequency converters of exceptional efficiency, ultrafast all-optical signal processing devices and single photon sources.
Waveguide structures based on lithium niobate: Scanning electron micrographs of a chemically etched ridge guide in Ti:LN (top left) and of a pe:LN photonic crystal waveguide (top right). Selectively etched surface of a bent Ti:PPLN waveguide section, where the domain orientation changes by 60°; domain periodicity is approximately 17 µm (bottom left). Optical micrograph of the end face of an array of 101 coupled Ti:PPLN waveguides (bottom right).
The goal of integrated optics is to combine many waveguide-based devices with different functionalities on a single substrate and connect them with optical channel guides. Such optical circuits can be designed for a number of applications in optical communications, instrumentation and sensing—in much the same way that electrical circuits form the backbone of integrated electronics.
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