You are here

Thin Films of Lithium Niobate for High Efficiency Electro-Optic Modulators

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Navy
Contract: W31P4Q-10-C-0138
Agency Tracking Number: 07SB2-0660
Amount: $749,889.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: N07-190
Solicitation Number: 2007.2
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2007
Award Year: 2010
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2010-04-01
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2012-06-30
Small Business Information
2724 SAWBURY BOULEVARD
COLUMBUS, OH -
United States
DUNS: 609463302
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: Yes
Principal Investigator
 Sri Sriram
 President
 (614) 799-0664
 sri@srico.com
Business Contact
 Judith Sriram
Title: Vice President
Phone: (614) 799-0664
Email: judith@srico.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project exploits the emerging technologies of wafer bonding and ion slicing, referred to as “smart-cut” to substantially improve the performance capability of lithium niobate based electro-optic modulators. The greatest problem has been to achieve high bandwidths while still maintaining low drive switching voltage. Material electro-optic coefficient, optical loss, dielectric loss and permittivity all contribute to these parameters, with lithium niobate currently representing the best balance of materials properties. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project develops novel materials processing techniques that extract the maximum possible performance out of the lithium niobate electro-optic material. Specifically, the lithium niobate material is reduced to a thin bulk crystal film on top of a low electrical permittivity and low loss microwave friendly substrate. This geometry vastly reduces dielectric loss and effective microwave index for the traveling wave electrode, making velocity and impedance matched low drive voltage modulators possible. Simulation results indicate that a switching voltage less than 1 Volt and 20 GHz bandwidth would be possible with the new thin film geometry.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

US Flag An Official Website of the United States Government