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Integrated electro-optic digital-to-analogue link for efficient computing and arbitrary waveform generation

Nature Photonics volume 19, pages 1107–1115 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The rapid growth in artificial intelligence and modern communication systems demands innovative solutions for increased computational power and advanced signalling capabilities. Integrated photonics, leveraging the analogue nature of electromagnetic waves at the chip scale, offers a promising complement to approaches based on digital electronics. To fully unlock their potential as analogue processors, establishing a common technological base between conventional digital electronics and analogue photonics is imperative for building next-generation computing and communications systems. However, the absence of an efficient interface has thus far critically challenged a comprehensive demonstration of the advantages of analogue photonic hardware, with the scalability, speed and energy consumption as primary bottlenecks. Here we address this challenge and demonstrate a general electro-optic digital-to-analogue link enabled using foundry-based lithium niobate nanophotonics. Using purely digital electronic inputs, we achieve the on-demand generation of both analogue optical and electronic waveforms at information rates of up to 186 Gb s−1. The optical waveforms address the digital-to-analogue electro-optic conversion challenge in photonic computing, showcasing high-fidelity Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology image encoding with an ultralow power consumption of 0.058 pJ b−1. The electronic waveforms enable a pulse-shaping-free microwave arbitrary waveform generation method with ultrabroadband tunable delay and gain. Our results pave the way for efficient and compact digital-to-analogue conversion paradigms enabled by integrated photonics, and underscore the transformative impact that analogue photonic hardware may have on various applications, such as computing, optical interconnects and high-speed ranging.

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Fig. 1: Photonic-integrated EO-DiAL concept.
Fig. 2: EO-DiAL implementation and device characterization.
Fig. 3: High-speed and energy-efficient EO conversion of data.
Fig. 4: Microwave photonic RF-AWG.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Richard, N. Hoffman, M. Roberts and Keysight Technologies, Inc. for technological support, J. Jacobson for assistance and D. Plant and G. Hills for discussions. This work is supported by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, grant number NRF-2022M3K4A1094782 (to Y.S., Y.H. and X.L.), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, grant number HR001120C0137 (to Y.H. and L.M.), the National Science Foundation (NSF), grant numbers OMA-2137723 (to Y.H.), NSF 2138068 (to Y.H.) and NSF EEC-1941583 (to K.P., H.K.W. and N.S.), the Department of the Navy, grant number N6833522C0413 (to X.Z. and K.P.), Amazon Web Services (AWS), grant number A50791 (to K.P., L.M. and D.R.), DRS Daylight Solutions, Inc., award A56097 (to L.M.), NASA grant number 80NSSC22K0262 (to N.S.), the National Institutes of Health, grant numbers NIH P41EB015903 (to N.L. and B.V.) and NIH R21EY031895 (to N.L. and B.V.) and the Singapore National Research Foundation grant numbers NRF2022-QEP2-01-P07 and NRF-NRFF15-2023-0005 (to D.Z.). Y.S. acknowledges support from the AWS Generation Q Fund at the Harvard Quantum Initiative. L.M. acknowledges support from the Capes-Fulbright and Behring Foundation fellowships. H.K.W. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. S.L. acknowledges support from the A*STAR National Science Scholarship. The views, opinions and/or findings expressed are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies of the Department of Defense or the US Government.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Yunxiang Song, Yaowen Hu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yunxiang Song, Yaowen Hu, Xinrui Zhu, Keith Powell, Letícia Magalhães, Hana K. Warner, Shengyuan Lu, Xudong Li, Dylan Renaud, Norman Lippok, Neil Sinclair & Marko Lončar

  2. Quantum Science and Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Yunxiang Song

  3. State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Frontiers Science Center for Nano-optoelectronics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Yaowen Hu

  4. HyperLight Corporation, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Fan Ye, Dylan Renaud & Mian Zhang

  5. Wellman Center of Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Norman Lippok & Benjamin Vakoc

  6. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Di Zhu

  7. Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Di Zhu

  8. A*STAR Quantum Innovation Centre (Q.InC), Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore

    Di Zhu

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Contributions

M.L. and Y.H. conceived the project. Y.S. and Y.H. designed the experiments. Y.S. performed the measurements and analysed the data with Y.H. assisting. Y.H. led the foundry tapeout with F.Y. assisting. X.Z., Y.S. and Y.H. fabricated the early versions of the device. K.P., L.M., H.K.W., S.L., X.L., D.R., N.L., D.Z., B.V., M.Z. and N.S. helped with the project. Y.S., Y.H. and M.L. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors. M.L. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Yunxiang Song, Yaowen Hu or Marko Lončar.

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Competing interests

F.Y., D.R., M.Z. and M.L. are involved in developing lithium niobate technologies at HyperLight Corporation. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Photonics thanks Jose Capmany, Charles Roques-Carmes and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Song, Y., Hu, Y., Zhu, X. et al. Integrated electro-optic digital-to-analogue link for efficient computing and arbitrary waveform generation. Nat. Photon. 19, 1107–1115 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-025-01719-9

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