GHz-rate optical phase shift in light-matter interaction-engineered, silicon-ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals

Iman Taghavi (), Omid Esmaeeli, Sheri Jahan Chowdhury, Kashif Masud Awan, Mustafa Hammood, Matthew Mitchell, Donald Witt, Cory Pecinovsky, Jason Sickler, Jeff F. Young, Nicolas A. F. Jaeger, Sudip Shekhar () and Lukas Chrostowski ()
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Iman Taghavi: University of British Columbia
Omid Esmaeeli: University of British Columbia
Sheri Jahan Chowdhury: University of British Columbia
Kashif Masud Awan: University of British Columbia
Mustafa Hammood: University of British Columbia
Matthew Mitchell: University of British Columbia
Donald Witt: University of British Columbia
Cory Pecinovsky: Polaris Electro-Optics
Jason Sickler: Polaris Electro-Optics
Jeff F. Young: University of British Columbia
Nicolas A. F. Jaeger: University of British Columbia
Sudip Shekhar: University of British Columbia
Lukas Chrostowski: University of British Columbia

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Organic electro-optic materials have demonstrated promising performance in developing electro-optic phase shifters. Their integration with other silicon photonic processes, nanofabrication complexities, and durability remains to be developed. While the required poling step in electro-optic polymers limits their potential and large-scale utilization, devices made of paraelectric nematic liquid crystals suffer from slow bandwidth. In ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals, we report an additional GHz-fast phase shift that ultimately allows for significant second-order nonlinear optical coefficients related to the Pockels effect. It avoids poling issues and can pave the way for hybrid silicon-organic systems with CMOS foundry compatibility. We report DC and AC modulation efficiencies of ≈ 0.25 V ⋅ mm (from liquid crystal orientation) and ≈ 25.7 V ⋅ mm (from the Pockels effect), respectively, an on-chip insertion loss of ≈ 2.6 dB, and an electro-optic bandwidth of f−6dB>4.18 GHz, employing improved light-matter interaction in a waveguide architecture that calls for only one lithography step.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63924-y

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