Thin-film lithium tantalate photonics

Thin-film lithium tantalate is an emerging photonic platform owing to the combination of strong electro-optic and nonlinear interaction combined with low electro-optic relaxation. We demonstrate a phase-stable and low-loss integrated electro-optic Mach-Zehnder modulator in thin-film lithium tantalate at visible wavelengths. In particular, less than 2 dB bias drift relative to quadrature bias is measured over 16 minutes in ambient conditions. A low half-wave voltage-length product of 0.65 V·cm, an extinction ratio of 30 dB, and a detector-limited bandwidth of 20 GHz is also measured. Our results are especially relevant for scalable AMO applications that require high-fidelity optical control.