Argonne Materials Science Colloquium: David Barton, Northwestern University

Thin-film lithium niobate on insulator (TFLN) is a promising platform for integrated classical and quantum photonics due to its intrinsically large electro-optic effect, wide transparency window, and wafer-scale availability. The direct connection between driving electric fields and refractive index in this platform has enabled new levels of interactions between optical and electric fields. This presentation will showcase some superlative device demonstrations in this platform. First, I will describe a few device examples in this platform that leverage the strong electro-optic modulation capabilities, including femtosecond pulse generation, high-power and narrow-linewidth lasers, and microwave-optical quantum transducers. Next, I will highlight some work we are undertaking to understand the materials origins of drift and stability issues at low frequencies that this material system is plagued by. Finally, I will discuss some future work to develop new integrated photonic materials and devices that overcome the limitations of TFLN and develop new functionality for photonics. Together, this work develops better structure-processing-performance metrics for devices in Lithium Niobate, while motivating new materials development for integrated photonics to push the limits of performance and efficiency, with applications in communications, computing, and sensing.

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