Demonstration of ultraprecision ductile-mode cutting for lithium niobate microring waveguides

In this paper, the application of the ultraprecision ductile-mode cutting method to the fabrication of microring waveguides in lithium niobate crystal was investigated. Although it was difficult to apply a mechanical cutting method to the fabrication of microring waveguides with smooth sidewalls, it was confirmed that no harmful cutting traces on the machined surface occur with the appropriate movement of the cutting tool. The root-meansquare surface roughness of the resulting sidewall was 6.1 nm, which is sufficiently small to suppress the scattering loss of the circulating light. In addition, the conditions for the ductile-mode cutting of lithium niobate crystal were investigated.