High Speed Heterogeneous Lithium Tantalate transceivers

The ever-increasing demand for high-speed, low-latency data communication continues to push the limits of current optical transceiver technology. While silicon photonics has achieved remarkable progress over the past decade, it faces intrinsic limitations inspeed. To overcome these constraints, Lithium Niobate and Lithium Tantalate have emerged as a highly promising material for heterogeneous integration. Exploiting the Pockels effect of materials they can be very fast and modulate at very high speeds. Imec has proven the integration of Lithium Niobate on silicon photonic circuits. However, owing to its large electro-optic coefficient, wide transparency window, and proven stability in photonic applications, stable operation under high powers Lithium Tantalatee offers unique opportunities for realizing compact, energy-efficient, and high-performance transceivers as compared to Lithium Niobate.

This PhD project aims to develop and demonstrate a heterogeneous integration platform where lithium tantalate thin films are bonded on silicon photonics, while co-integration with CMOS-compatible electronic drivers ensures high-performance and scalable transceiver modules. Here there weill be a focus on material integration, device design enabling also the co-integration with the electronics to finally show a system level demonstration.

This PhD project provides a unique opportunity to contribute at the cutting edge of photonic integration technologies. The successful candidate will join imec’s dynamic research ecosystem, gaining access to state-of-the-art facilities and guidance from leading scientists and engineers. The work will involve close collaboration with both academic and industrial partners in the fields of high-speed electronics, photonic circuit design, and advanced fabrication. Through this collaborative effort, the candidate will play a key role in advancing the development of next-generation high-speed optical transceivers.