QAM signal with electric field sensor based on thin-film lithium niobate [Invited]

Large-bandwidth, high-sensitivity, and large dynamic range electric field sensors are gradually replacing their traditional counterparts. The lithium-niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) material has emerged as an ideal platform for developing such devices, owing to its low optical loss, high electro-optical modulation efficiency, and significant bandwidth potential. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate an electric field sensor based on LNOI. The sensor consists of an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) and a tapered dipole antenna array. The measured fiber-to-fiber loss is less than -6.7 dB, while the MZI structure exhibits an extinction ratio of greater than 20 dB. Moreover, 64-QAM signals at 2 GHz were measured, showing an error vector magnitude (EVM) of less than 8%.