HyperLight, a start-up based in Cambridge, Mass., cited progress in its development of thin-film lithium niobate photonic integrated circuits for next-generation 800 Gbps and beyond 1.6 Tbps optical networking systems.
HyperLight claims its thin-film lithium niobate integrated photonics solution combines the proven superior material property of lithium niobate with an established and scalable integration process. The company has developed a thin-film lithium niobate modulator that reaches sub-volt driving voltages while maintaining >100 GHz bandwidth. Earlier generation of the devices achieved 700.5 Gbps line rate and 538.8 Gbps net rate over 10.2 km of single-mode fiber of intensity-modulated and direct detected (IM-DD) signals in a demonstration conducted with Nokia Bell Labs.
Dr. Mian Zhang, CEO and co-founder of HyperLight, will present the company at the upcoming 2021 European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) next week in France.
HyperLight claims breakthrough with its lithium niobate optical modulator
HyperLight, a start-up based in Cambridge, MA developing thin-film lithium niobate (LN) photonic integrated circuits (PICs), announced breakthrough voltage-bandwidth performances in integrated electro-optic modulators.
HyperLight says its electro-optic PIC could lead to orders of magnitude energy consumption reduction for next generation optical networking.
Current electro-optic modulators require extremely high radio-frequency (RF) driving voltages (> 5 V) as the analog bandwidth in ethernet ports approaches 100 GHz for future terabits per sec capacity transceivers. In comparison, a typical CMOS RF modulator driver delivers less than 0.5 V at such frequencies. Compound semiconductor modulator drivers can deliver voltage > 1 V at significantly increased cost and energy consumption but still fall short to meet the optimum driving voltage. The limited voltage-bandwidth performance in electro-optic modulators poses a serious challenge for meeting tight power consumption requirements from network builders.
HyperLight’s integrated electro-optic modulator is capable of 3-dB bandwidth > 100 GHz, a previously impossible voltage-bandwidth achievement. The results are described in a manuscript entitled “Breaking voltage-bandwidth limits in integrated lithium niobate modulators using micro-structured electrodes,” published in Optica on March 8th, 2021.
“We believe the significantly improved electro-optic modulation performance in our integrated LN platform will lead to a paradigm shift for both analog and digital ultra-high speed RF links,” said Mian Zhang, author, CEO of HyperLight. “For example, using sub-volt modulators for digital applications, high speed electronic drivers may have largely reduced gain-bandwidth requirements or possibly be completely bypassed with modulators directly driven from electronic processors. This would save building and running costs for network operators. For RF links, the low-voltage, high bandwidth and excellent optical power handling ability could enable sensitive and low noise millimeter wave (mmWave) photonic links in ultrahigh-frequency bands.”
