Aluminum Nitride Ultralow Loss Waveguides and Push-Pull Electro-Optic Modulators for Near Infrared and Visible Integrated Photonics

We demonstrate ultralow loss AlN single-mode channel waveguide and AlN electro-optic (EO) modulators in CMOS compatible AlN-on-insulator photonic circuits. Propagation loss was measured to be ~0.42 dB/cm at 1550 nm and ~2.36 dB/cm at 905 nm. A push-pull MZI modulator with arm length of 2.8 cm exhibits V of ~21 V at 1550 nm and ~12.9 V at 1064 nm, and modulation speed of ~140 MHz, limited by the resistive-capacitive delay. A dual-ring modulator exhibits extension ratio of ~12 dB and high modulation speed of ~4 GHz because of its small footprint as compared with the MZI modulator.