Non-volatile integrated photonics on lithium tantalate-on-insulator

Abstract

Scalable reconfigurable photonic integrated circuits require low-loss, high-speed optical control without continuous holding power. Yet widely used thermo-optic tuning and continuously biased electro-optic tuning consume static power and introduce thermal crosstalk or bias drift. Here we demonstrate a monolithic non-volatile photonics platform on lithium tantalate-on-insulator (LTOI). In congruent x-cut lithium tantalate, the switched ferroelectric-domain configuration is retained after the write field is removed. On the same LTOI platform, we demonstrate a waveguide propagation loss of approximately 0.05-0.06 dB/cm and multilevel non-volatile phase tuning in separate devices. The programmed states remain distinguishable through $10^6$ write cycles. Weighted segmented electrodes resolve 137 phase positions across a $\ddot{I}€$ range, corresponding to an analogue phase-setting resolution of approximately $0.007\ddot{I}€$. We further combine non-volatile phase control with high-speed electro-optic modulation to achieve zero-static-power bias control of a >110 GHz modulator and a 59.3 dB extinction ratio after non-volatile trimming. At the system level, an image-edge-detection chip achieves a measured energy efficiency of 3.48 TOPS/W. These results establish LTOI as an integrated photonics platform that combines persistent optical reconfigurability with low-loss routing and high-speed electro-optic modulation.

23 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables