GUIDED-WAVE ELECTROOPTIC BEAM DEFLECTOR USING DOMAIN REVERSAL IN LITAO3

We have fabricated and demonstrated the operation of electro-optic bea m deflectors using domain reversal in planar waveguides fabricated on LiTaO3 substrates. The planar waveguides were made using proton exchan ge on z-cut substrates, and proton exchange with subsequent rapid ther mal annealing was used to form the inverted domains. The deflection se nsitivity of the device was measured to be about 6.7 mrad/kV. Calculat ions indicate that the deflection sensitivity should be increased by a factor of 25 to 30 with improvements in device geometry.