Efficient acousto-optic modulation using a microring resonator on a thin-film lithium niobate–chalcogenide hybrid platform

Abstract

This Letter presents the first, to the best of our knowledge, thin-film lithium niobate–chalcogenide based microring acousto-optic modulator where an interdigital transducer and a chalcogenide strip waveguide are integrated on X-cut thin-film lithium niobate. The microring resonator exhibits a high loaded quality factor of 5 × 105. The developed hybrid acousto-optic modulator with an interaction length of 120 µm demonstrates an effective half-wave voltage of only 1.74 V, which corresponds to a voltage-length product of 0.02 V•cm. The performance of the acousto-optic modulator demonstrated on the unsuspended thin-film lithium niobate–chalcogenide waveguide platform is on par with that obtained from an acoustic cavity assisted homogeneous lithium niobate counterpart.