07 History

Hatchett reports a new metal in a North American mineral and names it columbium

A London chemist finds an unknown metal in an American mineral and calls it columbium.

Charles Hatchett

Ekeberg names tantalum after Tantalus

Tantalus could never drink; Ekeberg's new oxide could not take up acid, so he named it tantalum.

Anders Gustaf Ekeberg

Wollaston argues columbium and tantalum are the same element

For 35 years chemists believed niobium and tantalum were one metal.

William Hyde Wollaston

Lithium announced: Arfwedson finds a new alkali in petalite; Berzelius names it from Greek lithos

Lithium means stone: Berzelius named it for being found in a mineral.

Johan August Arfwedson, Jons Jacob Berzelius

Heinrich Rose names niobium after Niobe, daughter of Tantalus

Niobium is named for Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, to mark its likeness to tantalum.

Heinrich Rose

Rose names a second 'new metal' pelopium after Pelops, Niobe's brother

Rose named a second metal after Niobe's brother Pelops; it turned out to be niobium again.

Heinrich Rose

Marignac settles niobium chemistry; pelopium and 'ilmenium' are not new elements

Two decades after Rose, a Geneva chemist untangled niobium from tantalum for good.

Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac

Czochralski publishes the crystal-pulling method (as a way to measure metal crystallization speed)

The method that grows lithium niobate boules began as a speed test for molten metals.

Jan Czochralski

Zachariasen's structure survey of sesquioxides and ABO3 compounds lists LiNbO₃

A Norwegian doctoral thesis on oxide crystal structures includes LiNbO3, according to later citations.

W. H. Zachariasen

The name niobium chosen internationally over columbium

After 148 years and two names, chemists agreed to call the metal niobium.

Matthias and Remeika find ferroelectricity in LiNbO₃ and LiTaO₃

Two Bell Labs physicists find a crystal with a built-in electric arrow that a field can flip.

B. T. Matthias, J. P. Remeika

Li₂O-Nb₂O₅ phase diagram

A map of how lithium oxide and niobium oxide melt and freeze together.

Arnold Reisman, Frederic Holtzberg

Bell Labs pulls large CaWO4 crystals by Czochralski for masers

Before lithium niobate, Bell Labs pulled large oxide crystals for masers.

K. Nassau, L. G. Van Uitert

Electro-optic properties of LiNbO₃ measured

A voltage across the crystal changes how fast light travels through it.

G. E. Peterson, A. A. Ballman, P. V. Lenzo +1

LiNbO₃: an efficient phase-matchable nonlinear optical material

Infrared in, green out: the crystal can change the color of laser light.

G. D. Boyd, R. C. Miller, K. Nassau +2

Soviet Czochralski growth of LiNbO₃, LiTaO₃ and NaNbO3

A Soviet group pulled lithium niobate from the melt in the same year as Bell Labs.

S. A. Fedulov

Ballman grows LiNbO₃ and other piezoelectric and ferroelectric crystals by Czochralski pulling

Dip a seed into a glowing oxide melt, pull slowly, and a clear crystal boule grows.

A. A. Ballman

Noncritical (90 degree) phase matching in LiNbO₃

At the right temperature the beams phase-match without walking apart.

R. C. Miller, G. D. Boyd, A. Savage

Ferroelectric domain structure of LiNbO₃ revealed by etching

Acid shows hidden up and down regions inside the crystal.

K. Nassau, H. J. Levinstein, G. M. Loiacono

First tunable optical parametric oscillator, in LiNbO₃

One laser color in, a tunable pair of new colors out: the first optical parametric oscillator.

J. A. Giordmaine, R. C. Miller

Electro-optic light modulators (review)

Bell Labs lays out how a crystal and a voltage can switch light on and off.

I. P. Kaminow, E. H. Turner

Soviet measurement of the Curie temperature of LiNbO₃

Soviet physicists measure the temperature at which the crystal's built-in polarization vanishes.

G. A. Smolenskii, N. N. Krainik, N. P. Khuchua +2

Electro-optic coefficients of single-domain LiNbO₃

With the crystal's arrows all aligned, its electro-optic strength can finally be measured cleanly.

P. V. Lenzo, E. G. Spencer, K. Nassau

'Ferroelectric lithium niobate' parts 1-5: growth, single-domain poling, X-ray and neutron structure

Five papers in one journal issue cover growth, domains, poling, and X-ray and neutron structure.

K. Nassau, H. J. Levinstein, G. M. Loiacono +4

Crystal Technology (Palo Alto) begins making oxide single crystals including LiNbO₃

A Palo Alto company starts selling lithium niobate crystals, beginning a supply chain that lasts decades.

Smart Cut: hydrogen implantation plus bonding for silicon-on-insulator

Implant hydrogen, bond, heat, and a thin layer splits off: the trick later used on lithium niobate.

M. Bruel

Single-crystal LiNbO₃ films by crystal ion slicing

Implant ions deep into the crystal and peel off a 9-micron single-crystal sheet.

M. Levy, R. M. Osgood Jr., R. Liu +4

Submicrometer LiNbO₃ films by ion slicing and wafer bonding on SiO₂, r33 = 31 pm/V

Zurich slices the crystal to 680 nanometers on glass and its electro-optic strength survives.

Payam Rabiei, Peter Gunter

Electro-optically tunable microring resonators in lithium niobate (bonded film)

A voltage-tuned racetrack for light, carved in a film of crystal.

A. Guarino, G. Poberaj, D. Rezzonico +2

Ridge waveguides in Zn-substituted LiNbO₃ by ion-beam enhanced etching

Before thin-film wafers, physicists etched near-vertical ridges into epitaxial crystal layers with ion beams.

Holger Hartung, Ernst-Bernhard Kley, Andreas Tunnermann +2

Lithium niobate photonic wires from a bonded single-crystal film

Paderborn mills the bonded crystal film into wires one micron wide.

H. Hu, R. Ricken, W. Sohler

NANOLN (Jinan Jingzheng Electronics) established; supplies LNOI and LTOI wafers

A Jinan company starts selling single-crystal lithium niobate thin films.

'Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) for micro-photonic devices' (review)

A 2012 review uses the name LNOI; the films already come as 3-inch wafers.

G. Poberaj, H. Hu, W. Sohler +1

Integrated high-Q LiNbO₃ microdisk resonators

Harvard etches microdisks from crystal film with a quality factor of a hundred thousand.

Cheng Wang, Michael J. Burek, Zin Lin +1

Heterogeneous LN/SiN waveguides for wafer-scale PICs on silicon

Bond the crystal onto silicon nitride and skip etching it altogether.

Lin Chang, Martin H. P. Pfeiffer, Nicolas Volet +3

Monolithic ultra-high-Q LiNbO₃ microring resonator: Q = 1e7, 2.7 dB/m

The hard-to-etch crystal is etched so smoothly that a microring reaches a quality factor of ten million.

Mian Zhang, Cheng Wang, Rebecca Cheng +2

HyperLight founded as a Harvard spin-out (Cambridge MA)

A Harvard lab's thin-film modulators become a company.

Mian Zhang (CEO), Christian Reimer (co-founder)

Nanophotonic LiNbO₃ electro-optic modulators, 1.8 V cm

Shrink the waveguide and the voltage needed to switch light drops several-fold.

Cheng Wang, Mian Zhang, Brian Stern +2

Bonded thin-film LN on foundry silicon photonics, > 106 GHz 3 dB electrical bandwidth

An unetched crystal film on a silicon chip passes signals above 100 GHz.

Peter O. Weigel, Jie Zhao, Kelvin Fang +2

Integrated LN electro-optic modulators at CMOS-compatible voltages

A modulator driven by a computer chip's voltage, not a lab amplifier.

Cheng Wang, Mian Zhang, Xi Chen +5

Nanophotonic PPLN waveguides: 2600%/W cm^2 SHG at 1.5 µm, 4 µm poling period

The 1990s striped crystal, shrunk onto a chip, beats diffused waveguides twentyfold in efficiency.

Cheng Wang, Carsten Langrock, Alireza Marandi +5

Monolithic LN circuits for Kerr comb generation, filtering and modulation

One chip makes a comb of colors, picks one tooth and modulates it.

Cheng Wang, Mian Zhang, Mengjie Yu +3

Ultra-low-loss visible TFLN photonics

B. Desiatov, A. Shams-Ansari, M. Zhang +2

Broadband electro-optic frequency comb in an LN microring

A microwave drive turns one laser line into a ruler of evenly spaced colors.

Mian Zhang, Brandon Buscaino, Cheng Wang +1

Hybrid silicon and LN Mach-Zehnder modulators for 100 Gbit/s and beyond

A Guangzhou team bonds the crystal onto silicon for 100 Gbit/s modulators.

Mingbo He, Mengyue Xu, Yuxuan Ren +2

Periodically poled thin-film LN microrings, SHG efficiency 250,000%/W

A striped crystal ring converts 15 percent of 115 microwatts into the second harmonic.

Juanjuan Lu, Joshua B. Surya, Xianwen Liu +2

Ultrabroadband nonlinear optics in nanophotonic PPLN waveguides

Dispersion-engineered striped waveguides convert ultrabroadband light.

Marc Jankowski, Carsten Langrock, Boris Desiatov +2

Liobate (Jiangsu Niobao Optoelectronics) founded

A Nanjing startup sets out to make thin-film lithium niobate modulator chips end to end.

Wafer-scale low-loss LN PICs on 4- and 6-inch wafers with DUV lithography

Thin-film lithium niobate leaves the e-beam writer: 6-inch wafers, optical lithography, 0.27 dB/cm.

Kevin Luke, Prashanta Kharel, Christian Reimer +3

Micro-structured electrodes: 1.3 V RF half-wave voltage with 1.8 dB roll-off at 50 GHz

Micro-structured electrodes keep the RF half-wave voltage at 1.3 V with little roll-off to 50 GHz.

Prashanta Kharel, Christian Reimer, Kevin Luke +2

'Integrated photonics on thin-film lithium niobate' (review)

The thin-film field gets its standard review.

Di Zhu, Linbo Shao, Mengjie Yu +2

Fujitsu Optical Components commercializes a compact thin-film LN modulator (200 GBaud class)

The bulk-modulator leader says it has tamed thin-film drift for a 20-year life.

On-chip electro-optic frequency shifters and beam splitters

A chip that nudges light's color by a set amount, on command.

Yaowen Hu, Mengjie Yu, Di Zhu +2

ELENA: EU project for a European LN photonic platform and LNOI supply starts (coordinator CSEM)

Europe funds its own thin-film lithium niobate supply chain, wafer to package.

Dual-polarization thin-film LN IQ modulators: sub-1-V drive, 110 GHz, 1.96 Tb/s net single wavelength

Almost two terabits per second on one wavelength, driven by under one volt.

Mengyue Xu, Yuntao Zhu, Fabio Pittala +2

TFLN dual-polarization IQ modulator on silicon substrate for single-carrier 1.6 Tb/s

A university and a telecom giant co-author a 1.6 Tb/s thin-film modulator.

Xuanhao Wang, Chenglin Shang, An Pan +3

Luxtelligence incorporated in Lausanne as an EPFL spin-off (TFLN foundry and PDK)

A Lausanne spin-off offers thin-film lithium niobate chips with an open design kit.

Lightium founded in Zurich (TFLN design, foundry, packaging) after work at CSEM

Another Swiss thin-film lithium niobate company appears, from CSEM roots.

A. Ghadimi, F. Loizeau, D. Englund

'Lithium niobate photonics: Unlocking the electromagnetic spectrum' (review)

Science reviews the crystal's comeback from radio to ultraviolet.

Andreas Boes, Lin Chang, Carsten Langrock +4

Ultrafast tunable lasers using LN integrated photonics (Si₃N₄-LiNbO₃)

A chip laser whose color the crystal retunes electro-optically, used for coherent ranging.

Viacheslav Snigirev, Annina Riedhauser, Grigory Lihachev +3

Anpai completes an 8-inch TFLN design-plus-fab line in Wuhan (reporter claim)

A Chinese startup reports an 8-inch thin-film lithium niobate line, called a world first by the reporter.

Lithium tantalate photonic integrated circuits for volume manufacturing

LN's sibling, already used in 5G radio filters, joins integrated photonics.

Chengli Wang, Zihan Li, Johann Riemensberger +3

CHIPX (SJTU Wuxi) TFLN pilot line opens; first 6-inch TFLN wafer reported 2025-06

A university-run pilot line in Wuxi starts producing thin-film lithium niobate wafers.

HyperLight raises USD 37 M Series B

Venture money arrives for thin-film modulator chips.

Q.ANT launches a photonic processor using TFLN modulator arrays

Thin-film lithium niobate is used to compute, not only to communicate.

AFR reports volume shipment of 96 and 130 GBd TFLN coherent driver modulators; debuts a 400 Gb/s/lane TFLN chip

The company that bought a bulk lithium niobate line in 2019 now ships thin-film modulators in volume.

TDG Holding says 8-inch LN/LT wafers are in mass production

Bulk lithium niobate wafers reach 8 inches, the size of mainstream silicon fabs.

CSEM spins off CCRAFT, a pure-play TFLN foundry in Neuchatel

A Swiss research center turns six years of thin-film work into a foundry with multi-project wafer runs.

Hamed Sattari (CEO)

ELENA announces Europe's first commercial LNOI wafer supplier (150 mm); Soitec to supply CCRAFT

Europe gets its own source of thin-film lithium niobate wafers.

Volume manufacturing of TFLN modulators > 110 GHz on 4-inch wafers with a quartz handle

Swap the silicon handle for quartz and thin-film modulators pass 110 GHz on production wafers.

Yang Liu, Zihan Zhou, Peiqi Zhou +2

Silicon Austria Labs unveils an 8-inch TFLN wafer processed in its Villach cleanroom

A European research lab shows an 8-inch thin-film lithium niobate wafer processed in-house.

Mohssen Moridi

Transfer-printed TFLN MZMs on foundry silicon photonics: 2 km 160 GBd PAM-4 O-band link

Small pieces of crystal film are printed onto a silicon chip like stamps.

Jakob Declercq, Shengpu Niu, Margot Niels +1

China issues national standard GB/T 46611-2025 for LN single-crystal thin films for EO modulators

Thin-film lithium niobate wafers get a national standard, written by 36 organizations.

Ligentec and X-FAB add TFLN-on-SiN and TFLN-on-SOI at 200 mm

A merchant semiconductor foundry offers thin-film lithium niobate on 200 mm wafers.

High-speed heterogeneous lithium tantalate silicon photonics platform

Lithium tantalate is integrated on silicon photonics for high-speed modulation.

Margot Niels, Tom Vanackere, Ewoud Vissers +2

HyperLight, UMC and Wavetek partner for high-volume TFLN production on 6- and 8-inch wafers

UMC, a silicon foundry, partners for thin-film LN production on 6- and 8-inch wafers.

Mian Zhang (CEO)

OFC 2026: 1.6T-DR8 TFLN reference transceiver (single CW laser, 20 W) with TFC

One laser feeds eight 200-gigabit lanes through thin-film lithium niobate.

imec: TFLN and LiTaO₃ modulators integrated on silicon photonics by micro-transfer printing

Both sibling crystals, printed onto the same silicon photonics platform.

HyperLight raises USD 80 M Series C led by MediaTek

Chip and electronics-assembly giants invest in thin-film lithium niobate for AI networks.

Integrated electro-optic circulator on TFLN for bidirectional fiber transmission

A one-way street for light, built from modulators instead of magnets.

Charles St-Arnault, Charles Laperle, Derek M. Kita +2