Premium
Integrated electro‐optic Mach–Zehnder modulator fabricated by vapour Zn‐diffusion in LiNbO 3
Author(s) -
Suárez I.,
Pernas P. L.,
Lifante G.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
microwave and optical technology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.304
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1098-2760
pISSN - 0895-2477
DOI - 10.1002/mop.22376
Subject(s) - lithium niobate , materials science , microwave , waveguide , figure of merit , modulation (music) , optics , optoelectronics , wavelength , dielectric , voltage , electrode , mach–zehnder interferometer , diffusion , electro optic modulator , optical modulator , electrical engineering , chemistry , telecommunications , engineering , physics , phase modulation , interferometry , acoustics , phase noise , thermodynamics
A novel integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator fabricated on Z‐cut lithium niobate wafers is presented. The optical waveguides were fabricated by the Zn‐diffusion method, which allows monomode TM propagation at the wavelength of interests by choosing the channel waveguide width. The TM‐mode is shown to be buried beneath the surface, which avoids the need of using a dielectric buffer to reduce propagation losses induced by the metallic electrodes to perform electro‐optic modulation. A figure of merit of 9.2 V cm has been obtained for the switching voltage‐interaction length product, which is slightly higher than the calculated theoretical value using the overlap between the externally applied electrical field and the propagating optical field. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49:1194–1196, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22376