Breaking through the 8-inch lithium niobate crystal growth technology, Jinan University team assists in the development of the optical communication industry

Reporter Yin Mingliang, Correspondent Liu KekeLiu ZheRecently, Professor Liu Hong from the Frontier Cross Science Research Institute of Jinan University updated this message on his Moments: After nearly a year of research and dozens of rounds of exploration, Dehui and his friends have finally mastered the perfect 8-inch lithium niobate crystal growth technology. Assist in the preparation of large-sized lithium niobate thin films, promote the development of optoelectronic integrated devices, and achieve a full chain breakthrough in China's new generation information industry

Reporter Yin Mingliang, Correspondent Liu KekeLiu Zhe

Recently, Professor Liu Hong from the Frontier Cross Science Research Institute of Jinan University updated this message on his Moments: After nearly a year of research and dozens of rounds of exploration, Dehui and his friends have finally mastered the perfect 8-inch lithium niobate crystal growth technology. Assist in the preparation of large-sized lithium niobate thin films, promote the development of optoelectronic integrated devices, and achieve a full chain breakthrough in China's new generation information industry. The road is long, but everyone is confident... This information has attracted countless likes.

Lithium niobate crystal materials, due to their excellent electro-optic, acoustooptic, and nonlinear optical effects, are widely recognized as the core materials of key technologies in the new generation of information industry with the gradual development of new material properties and the emergence of new applications.

Recently, a team of professors Liu Hong and Sun Dehui from Jinan University successfully grown 8-inch (200mm) diameter X-axis lithium niobate single crystals using the pull-up method. This is another important breakthrough in lithium niobate crystal growth technology after the team broke through the 8-inch lithium niobate crystal growth technology in Z-axis, 128Y and other directions for acoustic chips in 2021.

In recent years, integrated optoelectronic devices based on lithium niobate single crystal thin films have become a research hotspot and a key field of development internationally, as they can achieve high-speed optical modulation with a single pass bandwidth of over 100G. Lithium niobate is the gatekeeper of the entire optical communication world, and for optical communication, lithium niobate holds the same position as silicon in the semiconductor industry. The international scientific research community has predicted that it has entered the era of "lithium niobate valley".

The mainstream microfabrication process for integrating optoelectronic devices is the 8-inch semiconductor production line. Therefore, 8-inch X-axis lithium niobate crystals are highly valued as the urgently needed basic material for the new generation of information technology integrated optoelectronic chips. However, there are only 3-inch and 4-inch X-axis lithium niobate crystal products available in the domestic market. Japanese companies announced last year that they had achieved small-scale trial production of 8-inch X-axis lithium niobate. So the 8-inch X-axis lithium niobate crystal has become a key foundational material that limits the development of China's new generation information technology.

The "Optoelectronic Functional Crystal Team" led by Professor Sun Dehui at Jinan University, under the guidance of national talent Professor Liu Hong, has been conducting research on various high-quality and large-sized lithium niobate crystal growth technologies and devices since 2017. With the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Major Basic Research Project of the Shandong Natural Science Foundation of China, and the School Talent Fund, the team has successively broken through the 8-inch Z-axis and 128Y-axis lithium niobate crystal growth technology, And achieved the transformation of tens of millions of scientific and technological achievements, and jointly established Shandong Hengyuan Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. with the goal of achieving the industrialization of 8-inch lithium niobate crystals.

The successful research and development of the 8-inch X-axis lithium niobate crystal growth technology marks a breakthrough in the bottleneck technology of China's new generation of key information technology basic materials. In the future, the team will further improve the growth quality of 8-inch X-axis lithium niobate crystals and complete pilot experiments as soon as possible, providing a solid guarantee for the development of China's information industry basic materials.

When it comes to the transformation process of this technology, Professor Sun Dehui said that starting mass production in the factory is a long process, including several preparation procedures: preparation of polycrystalline materials such as ingredients, mixing, pressing, and firing, as well as the most crucial step of "shaping and making temperature fields for insulation materials". At that time, we were full of motivation. During the summer vacation, our team members departed from school in the morning to go to the company and only returned in the evening when it was dark. During the process of building the production line in the company, a new equipment was started one day, and a process was completed. Every day was filled with a sense of achievement

For the future, team members are very confident. The competition on the path of localization of photonic integrated chips is fierce, but the future is bright and worthy of exploration by every scientific researcher. The pace has never stopped.

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