At Microelectronics US, Caroline Hayes spoke to Chomani Gaspe, material scientist at La Luce Cristallina about its properties and the company’s roadmap.

BaTiO3 is a relatively new material for making high efficiency modulators or photonic ICs. “For next-gen applications . . when you need fast switching, demanding data needs, 6G and above telecommunications, you need high power, high efficiency, low loss modulars,” Gaspe explained. Typical applications are industrial high performance modulators for telecom, AI data centres, quantum computing and lidar applications, she added.

“The resulting IC modulators [wave guides and optical switches] are faster, smaller and consume less power than than the traditional silicon-based modulators and other materials being [presently] used on photonics,” she added.

La Luce Cristallina is only the second manufacturer of barium titanate (BaTiO3) coated wafers in the US. At the end of last year, the company transferred to eight-inch (200-mm) wafer production and opened a fabrication facility in Austin, Texas to expand capacity for wafer-scale fabrication of its crystal-on-glass BaTiO3 substrates.

La Luce Cristallina said its wafer coating delivers a foundry-compatible, electro-optic platform and that BaTiO3 offers more longevity and multiple generations of device innovation compared to materials such as lithium niobate. It added that the 200-mm wafer also offers better reliability than electro-optic polymers, “maintaining optimal performance even under high temperatures, high-frequency operations, radiation and other adverse conditions”. The company uses RF sputtering to achieve scalable manufacturing and is currently producing 200-250 wafers annually. It is planning to introduce 300-mm (12-inch) wafer production soon.

Its supply chain uses US-sourced silicon and qualified international partners for SOI wafers.

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