Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators

Chenguang Deng; Yutong He; Wenfeng Yang; Han Yu; Zijian Hong; Hao Liu; Haojie Han; Wei Li; Yunpeng Ma; Zhongshan Zhang; Yongjun Wu; Jing Ma; Bing Xiong; Changzheng Sun; Rong Yu; Jing-Feng Li; Ji Zhou; Yi Luo; Qian Li

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-02081-9

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Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators

Original Articles

- Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators
- Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators
- Light: Science & Applications 2026年15卷第1期页码：300-309
- Affiliations：
  
  1.State Key Laboratory of New Ceramic Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  2.Beijing National Research Centre for Information Science and Technology (BNRist), State Key Laboratory of Space Network and Communications, Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  3.State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
  4.Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Advanced Solid State Energy Storage Technology and Applications, Taizhou Institute of Zhejiang University, Taizhou, Zhejiang, China
  5.Institute of Fundamental and Transdisciplinary Research, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
  6.Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Author bio：
  
  Changzheng Sun (czsun@tsinghua.edu.cn)
  Qian Li (qianli_mse@tsinghua.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-02081-9
  中图分类号：
- 收稿：2025-06-03，
  
  修回：2025-09-22，
  
  录用：2025-10-02，
  
  网络出版：2026-01-02，
  
  纸质出版：2026-01-31
- Accepted：
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Chenguang Deng, Yutong He, Wenfeng Yang, 等. Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators[J]. Light: Science & Applications, 2026,15(1):300-309.

Deng, C. G. et al. Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 300-309 (2026).
Chenguang Deng, Yutong He, Wenfeng Yang, 等. Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators[J]. Light: Science & Applications, 2026,15(1):300-309. DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-02081-9.

Deng, C. G. et al. Self-buffered epitaxy of barium titanate on oxide insulators enables high-performance electro-optic modulators. Light: Science & Applications, 15, 300-309 (2026). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-02081-9.

摘要

Abstract

Integrated photonics has emerged as a promising alternative for data communication and computing

ferroelectric BaTiO

(BTO) stands out for its exceptional electro-optic response among candidate materials. However

direct epitaxial growth of BTO entails a fundamental trade-off: substrates with low refractive index are required for strong optical confinement

yet those with large lattice mismatch degrade film crystalline quality and electro-optic performance. We report a buffer-free

strain-engineered approach to integrate high-performance BTO thin films directly on LaAlO

-Sr

TaAlO

(LSAT) oxide-insulator substrates. By exploiting a self-buffer layer formed during the initial growth stage

we achieve periodic in-plane strain modulation that stabilizes a polymorphic phase boundary with orthorhombic polar nanoregions

yielding a Pockels coefficient exceeding 358 pm V⁻¹ and a Curie temperature raised to 200 ℃. Leveraging this material platform

we demonstrate the first realization of a Mach–Zehnder modulator using epitaxial BTO on LSAT. The device exhibits a half-wave voltage–length product of 0.7 V cm at 1550 nm

which closely matches finite-element simulations

and supports a 6-dB electro-optic bandwidth of 28 GHz. Our results

validate BTO on LSAT as a viable photonic platform for scalable

low-voltage and high-speed modulators.

关键词

Keywords

references

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