PIC Advanced Materials Patents: Who Leads, Where Gaps Are 2026
- Filing activity peaked in 2021 at 95 families and has since declined through 2026, suggesting the current wave of thin-film lithium niobate and indium phosphide claims is maturing rather than accelerating.
- Every tracked assignee shows 0 filings in the latest year including firms with -100% YoY drops — a pattern consistent with the 18-month publication lag rather than a real stop in R&D.
- Optical elements (G02B) dominate at 604 of 632 records while laser (H01S) and modulation (G02F) claims trail well behind, pointing to where claim space is still comparatively open.
Filing growth compares 2021 (95 records) with 2024 (75) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 632 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape tracks patent families at the intersection of photonic integrated circuits and the advanced material platforms used to build them — thin-film lithium niobate, indium phosphide, barium titanate, and silicon nitride. The search combines PIC and silicon-photonics terminology in the title/abstract with material terms in the title/claims/description, scoped to IPC classes covering optical elements, optical modulation, and semiconductor lasers.
632 published records fall within this scope between 2015 and mid-2026. Filing offices skew heavily toward the United States, with Europe and the WIPO PCT route as the next largest channels — a pattern typical of a field where core IP is filed domestically first and extended selectively.
Filing trend and technology mix
Two views of the same 632 families: how filing volume has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim weight.
Filings rose to a 2021 peak, then declined
Annual filings climbed from 31 in 2017 to a peak of 95 in 2021, then eased — 2022's midpoint count of 90 was already off the peak. Remember the last one or two years are always undercounted because publication trails filing by roughly 18 months, so the apparent decline after 2021 is partly, but not entirely, an artefact of that lag.
Optical elements carry most of the claim weight
G02B (optical elements & systems) appears in 604 of 632 records, making it close to a universal classification for this corpus. G02F (modulation) at 115 and H01S (lasers) at 109 are the next-heaviest subclasses, with H01L (semiconductor devices), H04B (transmission) and H04J (multiplexing) showing that PIC advanced-materials filings routinely cross into adjacent electronics and communications classes.
Shares are the percentage of the 632 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Photonic Integrated Circuit Advanced Materials with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about photonic integrated circuit advanced materials and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records in this corpus
Photonic integrated circuit having improved electrical isolation between n-type contacts
A photonic integrated circuit including first and second opto-electronic devices fabricated on a semiconductor wafer with an epitaxial layer stack including an n-type indium phosphide-based contact layer. The design adds a selectively p-type doped tubular-shaped region to electrically isolate adjacent n-type contacts, while a non-intentionally doped waveguide layer of indium gallium arsenide phosphide optically interconnects the devices above the contact layer.Filed by EFFECT PHOTONICS B.V., published 2020-08-20.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20060239612A1 | Flip-chip devices formed on photonic integrated circuit chips | 113 |
| 2 | US20170194309A1 | Photonic integrated circuit package | 111 |
| 3 | US9354039B2 | Methods, systems, and apparatus for programmable quantum photonic processing | 110 |
| 4 | US20170179680A1 | Surface coupled systems | 96 |
| 5 | US9791258B2 | Methods, systems, and apparatus for programmable quantum photonic processing | 87 |
| 6 | US10754091B1 | Integrated coherent optical transceiver, light engine | 85 |
| 7 | US20170194310A1 | Photonic integrated circuit package | 82 |
| 8 | US6888989B1 | Photonic chip mounting in a recess for waveguide alignment and connection | 81 |
| 9 | US20160131842A1 | Two-stage adiabatically coupled photonic systems | 79 |
| 10 | US20160124164A1 | Optoelectronic ball grid array package with fiber | 72 |
Citation counts reflect a searched corpus and skew toward older filings — read them as a signal of influence within this dataset, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the numbers say about the field
Three patterns stand out once filing trend, classification mix and citation data are read together.
Growth has flattened since 2021
The peak year was 2021 at 95 families; by the 2022 midpoint, filings were already at 90, and the trend line eases from there. Combined with a 2026 count of 2 that is still catching up to the publication lag, the honest read is a field consolidating around established platforms rather than one in an early growth phase.
Optical-elements claims are close to universal
G02B appears in the overwhelming majority of records, meaning most filings touch waveguide, coupling or general optical-element claims regardless of the underlying material platform. G02F and H01S trail well behind, which is where platform-specific modulation and laser-integration claims concentrate instead.
US-first filing with selective international extension
The United States receives more than three times the filings of the next-largest office (EPO), with the WIPO PCT route close behind. UK, Canadian and Australian filings are comparatively small, suggesting most applicants treat those as secondary markets rather than primary filing destinations.
Co-filing is rare and concentrated
Only three co-assignee pairs appear in this dataset, and the strongest links are university-industry pairings rather than company-to-company alliances. That points to a field where most IP is developed and filed by a single organisation, with joint filings the exception rather than the norm.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to photonic integrated circuit advanced materials, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and where the momentum has gone quiet
Every tracked assignee in the recent-momentum data shows zero filings in the latest year, several with a -100% year-over-year drop. Given the 18-month publication lag, this looks more like a reporting gap than an actual halt — but it does mean the most recent competitive signal in this dataset is incomplete.
Recent-year filings are undercounted, not absent
Assignees including EFFECT Photonics Holding B.V., Intel Corporation and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) all show 0 filings in the latest year with sharp YoY declines. Treat this as a publication-lag artefact rather than evidence these programmes have stopped filing.
The densest links are academic-industry pairs
The strongest co-assignee relationships in this corpus pair an industry filer with a research organisation or university, rather than two competing companies. That is consistent with materials work still drawing on university fabrication and characterisation capability.
A moderate-sized, concentrated field
At 632 families this is not a sprawling landscape — it is small enough that a handful of assignees' filing decisions visibly shape the yearly trend line, and large enough that white space claims still need to be checked against the leading players' portfolios before drafting.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| EFFECT Photonics Holding B.V. | 0 | -100% |
| Intel Corporation | 0 | -100% |
| Infinera Corporation | 0 | — |
| EFFECT Photonics B.V. | 0 | — |
| Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) | 0 | -100% |
| Raytheon Company | 0 | — |
| Finisar Corporation | 0 | — |
| SkyAI, Inc. | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with concentrated classification and a thinning recent-year signal — both are reasons to dig deeper before committing to a filing or design-around strategy.
Check freedom-to-operate against the most-cited records
The five most-cited patents in this corpus, including two quantum-photonic processing filings, sit at the centre of citation networks and are worth clearing before drafting claims in adjacent territory.
Explore in Eureka →Model the under-claimed branches before the gap closes
Barium titanate modulator integration and silicon nitride laser coupling show lighter claim density than the dominant G02B optical-elements category — a first-mover claim there has less prior art to design around today.
Explore in Eureka →Common questions about this landscape
This landscape covers patents that combine photonic integrated circuit or silicon-photonics terminology with claims to specific advanced material platforms: thin-film lithium niobate, indium phosphide, barium titanate, and silicon nitride. These materials matter because each offers a different trade-off between electro-optic modulation efficiency, laser integration, and manufacturing compatibility with existing silicon fabrication lines. The dataset spans 632 patent families filed between 2015 and mid-2026 across IPC classes covering optical elements, optical modulation, and semiconductor lasers.
The ranking in this dataset is led by a small group of assignees whose filing activity has slowed in the most recent tracked year, though that slowdown is partly explained by the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication. Rather than naming a fixed top list here, it is worth checking the assignee ranking table directly, since positions shift as new publications land. Co-filing between companies is rare in this field — most patents are filed by a single organisation, with the few multi-party filings pairing an industrial assignee with a university or research institute.
Filings in this corpus rose steadily from 31 in 2017 to a peak of 95 in 2021, then began to ease, with 2022's midpoint count already down to 90. This pattern is consistent with a technology area where the core material-integration approaches — coupling schemes for thin-film lithium niobate, isolation structures for indium phosphide, and similar — were substantially claimed during that window. It does not mean the underlying R&D has stopped; it means the rate of new, distinct claim filings in this specific scope has slowed, which is a different thing.
Classification density points to G02F (optical modulation) and H01S (lasers) as carrying comparatively lighter claim weight than G02B (optical elements), which appears in the near-totality of records. Within that, barium titanate-based modulator integration and silicon nitride laser-coupling schemes show fewer dense citation clusters than the indium phosphide contact-isolation and quantum-photonic processing claims that dominate the most-cited list. Any white-space claim should still be checked against the specific portfolios of the leading assignees before drafting, since classification-level gaps can mask company-level coverage.
Treat the final one to two years of any patent trend as an undercount, because patent applications typically publish about 18 months after filing. In this dataset, the 2026 figure of 2 filings and the widespread -100% year-over-year drops shown by multiple assignees are almost certainly a reporting artefact rather than a real stop in filing activity. The more reliable signal is the multi-year trend through the peak year and the year or two after it, not the most recent partial year on its own.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.