Lithium Niobate Vertical Cavity Electro-Optic Modulator
Abstract
Electro-optic modulators (EOMs) are vital for optical imaging and information processing, with free-space devices enabling LiDAR and beam control. Lithium niobate (LN), powered by the strong Pockels effect and scalable LN-on-insulator (LNOI) platform, has become a leading material for high-performance EOMs. Here we realize a vertical-cavity EOM in which an LN membrane is sandwiched between two photonic crystal (PhC) mirrors with integrated electrodes. The cavity supports sharp defect-mode resonances that shift efficiently under the Pockels effect, enabling strong modulation of transmission. Experiments show a depth of 43 % at 50 V and a bandwidth of 5 MHz. This architecture combines free-space compatibility with fabrication simplicity, opening new routes to compact electro-optic platforms for ranging, holography, and beam steering.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.02202,
title = {Lithium Niobate Vertical Cavity Electro-Optic Modulator},
author = {Jikun Liu and Weiye Liu and Wei Wu and Ziang Guo and Changrui Zhu and Lun Qu and Pengfei Zhu and Yiting Zhang and Zhihao Chen and Qinglian Li and Dahuai Zheng and Hongde Liu and Shaowei Wang and Wei Cai and Mengxin Ren and Jingjun Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.02202},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
7 pages, 4 figures