Electro- and Thermo-Optics Response of X-Cut Thin Film LiNbO3 Waveguides

Lithium niobate has been for decades the material of election for integrated nonlinear and electro-optics. Its recent availability in thin films affording subwavelength confinement of light and nanostructuring capabilities has led to ground-breaking results in numerous applications, ranging from ultrafast signal processing to efficient nonlinear optics, where electro-optic (EO) and thermo-optic (TO) functionalities can be further leveraged for enhanced tunability and reconfigurability. This work provides a consistent comparison between these two approaches in the most widely used configuration in LiNbO3 nanophotonics at telecom wavelengths. Using state of the art Bragg grating technology for high precision index measurements, we evaluate the guided-wave EO and TO tunability to be
$3\times 10 ^{-5}\,\,\text{V}^{-1}$
and
$3.6\times 10 ^{-3}\,\,\text{W}^{-1}$
, respectively, and study further operation and design tradeoffs, cross-talk effects and long-term stability. The results provide useful insights to identify the most appropriate strategies for implementing reconfigurable integrated photonic circuits effectively leveraging the unique features of LiNbO3.