TECH

The component you've never heard of that will speed up your internet

Optical Modulator
A team from the City University of Hong Kong and Harvard University have been able to miniaturize a lithium niobate modulator, an essential component for the optoelectronic industry and for data transmission by light, by placing the entire modulator inside a chip.The modulator is smaller, more efficient, with faster data transmission and still costs less. According to Cheng Wang and his colleagues, "technology is poised to revolutionize the industry."Electro-optical modulators are critical components in modern communications. They convert high-speed electronic signals from computers and routers into optical signals before transmitting them through fiber-optic networks.But the existing and commonly used lithium niobate modulators require a high drive voltage - 3 to 5V - which is significantly higher than the 1V available in typical CMOS circuits. This makes it necessary to use an electric amplifier that makes the whole component bulky, expensive and high power consumption.The miniaturized electro-optic modulator is less than 2 cm in length and its surface area is about 100 times smaller than the area of ​​traditional components. It is also highly efficient with high speed data transmission, with tripling data bandwidth from 35 GHz to 100 GHz, yet with less power consumption, in addition to ultra low optical losses.The invention will pave the way for future high-speed, low-power, and cost-effective communications networks, not forgetting that the component is suitable for a variety of photonic quantum computing techniques - data stored and processed in light."In the future, we will be able to put CMOS right next to the modulator, so they can be more integrated, with less power consumption." The electric amplifier will no longer be needed, "said Professor Wang Cheng.


Bibliography:
Integrated lithium niobate electro-optic modulators operating at CMOS-compatible voltages
Cheng Wang, Mian Zhang, Xi Chen, Maxime Bertrand, Amirhassan Shams-Ansari, Sethumadhavan Chandrasekhar, Peter Winzer, Marko Loncar