Electro-optical (EO) modulators are crucial components in optical systems, translating high-speed electrical signals into the optical domain. They play a key role in various applications, including optical telecommunications, optical metrology and sensing, microwave photonics Terahertz (THz) signal processing, and quantum information processing.
Thin Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) is an emerging material platform for photonic integrated circuits (PICs), with a significant impact on the next and beyond next-generation telecom and datacom industries. Lithium Niobate (LN) is a material that outperforms in many key metrics established platforms such as Silicon or Indium Phosphide. Some of these key metrics are its ultrafast modulation bandwidth (beyond 150 GHz), wide transparency window (from NIR to visible), no nonlinear absorption, tolerance to high power, low insertion loss, and most importantly, very efficient EO modulation. This makes it the ideal platform for building fast modulators.
Despite its potential, LN has not yet reached widespread adoption due to challenges in fabrication technology. LN is notoriously difficult to etch, and high-quality waveguide manufacturing has been demonstrated by only a few research groups, primarily using electron beam lithography methods. Our competitive advantage lies in a proprietary new etching technology for creating high-density, tightly integrated LN PICs. This patented process employs diamond-like carbon (DLC) to etch low-loss, straight sidewall, tightly confining LN integrated photonic circuits and is compatible with wafer-scale lithography.
The HDLN project aims to develop a commercial foundry service for TFLN, offering high production volumes, low optical losses, and high component density. We will establish a generic fabrication process for LN, together with a corresponding design manual and a qualified component library, which will be compiled into a process design kit (PDK). This PDK will be implemented in professional electronic photonic design automation (EPDA) software such as Synopsys, as well as in open-source alternatives like gdsfactory, featuring advanced capabilities like circuit-level simulation.
LN is applicable to many fields, from mature markets to emerging applications. Given its excellent properties for building modulators, its primary applications are in next-generation optical interconnects for telecom and data centers, where TFLN adoption is already strongly trending in various markets. Beyond mature communications markets, TFLN is being actively explored for emerging applications such as coherent LiDAR, photonic computing, AI accelerators, and photonic quantum computing.
By the end of the HDLN project, we will offer multi-project wafer runs to customers from industry and academia. We will also demonstrate the platform's viability through high-impact application demonstrations, such as ultra-fast optical telecom/datacom transceivers and THz- and mm-wave photonics for ultra-broadband signal processing and 6G networks.
