Floating type lithium niobate optical waveguide

Abstract

The invention relates to a floating type lithium niobate optical waveguide. A lithium niobate sample is adopted as base material, and operation is carried out according to the following steps of bombarding the lithium niobate sample with a helium ion (He+) beam which is 1 Mev in energy, forming crystal lattice damage in a certain area below the surface of the sample, enabling the parts with the crystal lattice damage to be provided with refractive index smaller than that of undamaged parts, limiting a light beam in a waveguide area to spread, etching round or rectangular holes in the surface of the sample in a focused ion beam etching way, enabling mixed acid solutions to be contacted with the parts with the crystal lattice damage through the holes, further corroding the parts, forming an air interlayer, and forming a floating waveguide structure on the surface of the lithium niobate sample. The lithium niobate optical waveguide plays a good role in limiting optical signals spreading in the lithium niobate optical waveguide, has extremely low transmission loss, and can be widely used for electronic components, optical components and modulation components.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to an optical waveguide material, in particular to a lithium niobate optical waveguide material with a suspended structure. Background technique [0002] Lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ) crystal is one of the most widely used new inorganic materials at present. It is a good piezoelectric transducer material, ferroelectric material, electro-optic material, nonlinear optical material and surface wave matrix material. Lithium niobate, as a material with electro-optic effect, plays a light modulation role in optical communication and is widely used. The so-called electro-optic effect refers to the effect that the refractive index of the crystal changes when an electric field is applied to the crystal. Some crystals have intrinsic electric dipole moments due to spontaneous polarization. When an electric field is applied to such crystals, the external electric field will make the orientation of the intrinsic dipole moments in the crystal te...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0004] Aiming at the problem that the difference in the refractive index contrast of traditional lithium niobate optical waveguides in the market is too small (n is only about 0.1) and the traditional etching method is difficult to process lithium niobate crystals, the present invention proposes a suspended lithium niobate optical waveguide The waveguide, the suspended lithium niobate optical waveguide, etch the lithium niobate sample by using helium (He) ion implantation, focused ion beam (focused ion beam) etching, wet etching (wet etching) and other techniques Processing, and finally a suspended optical waveguide structure is obtained, so that the upper and lower sides of the waveguide area are air (refractive index = 1), and the refractive index difference between the waveguide area and the surrounding restricted area is maximized (n = 2.3-1 = 1.3 ), where 2.3 is the refractive index of lithium niobate, and 1 is the refractive index of air, so that the light is well restricted during the propagation process, thereby greatly reducing the transmission loss, thereby maximizing the working efficiency of the device

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