Lithium niobate is a material that exhibits outstanding electro-optic, nonlinear optical, acousto-optic, piezoelectric, photorefractive, and pyroelectric properties. A thin-film lithium niobate photonic crystal can confine light in the sub-wavelength scale, which is beneficial to the integration of the lithium niobate on-chip device. The commercialization of the lithium niobate on insulator gives birth to the emergence of high-quality lithium niobate photonic crystals. In order to provide guidance to the research of lithium niobate photonic crystal devices, recent progress about fabrication, characterization, and applications of the thin-film lithium niobate photonic crystal is reviewed. The performance parameters of the different devices are compared.

The compact and reliable ultraviolet (UV) source has attracted remarkable attention for its potential use in optical measurement systems, high-density optical storage, and biomedical applications. We demonstrate ultraviolet generation by frequency doubling in a lithium-tantalate-on-insulator (LTOI) microdisk via modal phase matching. The 50-µm-diameter microdisk was milled by a focused ion beam (FIB) and followed by chemo-mechanical polishing (CMP) to smooth the disk surface and edge, and the Q-factor reaches 2.74×105 in the visible band. On-chip UV coherent light with a wavelength of 384.3 nm was achieved, which shows great promise for using LTOIs in integrated ultraviolet source platforms.

We investigate the influences of structure parameters and interface shapes on the bandwidth of the edge state of lithium niobate valley photonic crystals. By increasing the size difference of two air holes in the same unit cell, we find that the bandwidth of the lossless nontrivial edge state possesses a peak value of 0.0201(a/λ), which can be used to construct broadband valley photonic crystal waveguides. Mode field distributions verify that the waveguide is robust against sharp bends and exhibits chirality. When the unit cell is arranged in a bearded interface with the top and bottom components showing negative and positive valley Chern numbers, respectively, we find that the lithium niobate valley photonic crystal is more likely to exhibit a lossless edge state, which is difficult to be realized in valley waveguides with low refractive index materials. This work can provide guidance on the design of the high-performance topological waveguide.

All-optical logic gates including AND, XOR, and NOT gates, as well as a half-adder, are realized based on two-dimensional lithium niobate photonic crystal (PhC) circuits with PhC micro-cavities. The proposed all-optical devices have an extinction ratio as high as 23 dB due to the effective all-optical switch function induced by two-missing-hole micro-cavities. These proposed devices can have potential implementation of complex integrated optical functionalities including all-optical computing in a lithium niobate slab or thin film.

Developing natural “free space” frequency upconversion is essential for photonic integrated circuits. In a single-crystal lithium niobate thin film planar waveguide of less than 1 μm thickness, we achieve type I and type II mode phase-matching conditions simultaneously for this thin film planar waveguide. Finally, by employing the mode phase matching of e+e→e with d33 at 1018 nm, we successfully achieve a green second-harmonic wave output with the conversion efficiency of 0.12%/(W·cm2), which verifies one of our simulation results. The rich mode phase matching for three-wave mixing in a thin film planar waveguide may provide a potential application in on-chip frequency upconversions for integrated photonic and quantum devices.

Using a lithium niobate (LN) material, we propose a broadband polarization beam splitter (PBS) with high efficiency by employing a negative refractive photonic crystal (PhC) wedge slab with an angle of 60°. It can split the incident light into two parts at about 90° with TE and TM polarizations. The transmissions of polarized light for an LN-based PBS are more than 80% with a broad angle and wavelength bandwidth of 8° and 70 nm at 1.55 μm, while with a Si-based PhC, no PBS with high efficiency can be realized for the relatively lower transmission of TM output light.

A multichannel polarization-entangled photon-pair source in an MgO-doped periodically poled lithium niobate (MgO:PPLN) waveguide is proposed. Based on type I quasi-phase-matched spontaneous parametric down conversion in a single MgO: PPLN waveguide placed inside a Sagnac interferometer and pumped by monochromatic light, a source capable of supporting tens to hundreds of channels of polarization-entangled photon pairs in fiber communication bands simultaneously can be achieved. An inherent channel switch of this source is investigated, which will be significant for future entanglement distribution networks.