Abstract
We demonstrate 100-Gbaud on-off-keying (OOK) transmission driven at a low voltage using an electro-optic (EO) polymer modulator combined with a silicon Mach-Zehnder interferometer waveguide. Various types of organic- and polymer-based modulators have been reported to perform efficient EO modulation and high-speed data transmission at over 100 Gbaud. However, there are critical concerns regarding the practical application of polymer devices in terms of environmental stability. In particular, long-term thermal storage and stability during operation require improvements before EO polymer modulators can be applied in practical systems. We have developed an EO polymer with enhanced thermophysical stability and used it to fabricate an efficient EO polymer modulator. In this study we extend our earlier work on high-speed EO polymer modulators by performing fiber-link 100-Gbaud OOK transmission at various operating temperatures. A thermal stability test revealed that the EO polymer modulator can survive high-temperature exposure up to 110°C. Error-free signal transmissions over a distance of 2.0 km was successfully demonstrated with a driving voltage of 1.9 V <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">pp</sub> and a bit error rate below the 7% overhead forward error correction threshold. The driving voltage, bandwidth, bit error rate, and fiber-link performance of the device are presented.
Highlights
THE exponential growth of interconnect bandwidth requirements for next-generation optical fiber links has driven an upgrade of Ethernet products to 200 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 400 GbE
Transform [12] to conduct the value of 1.9 V, which was almost identical to the V of 1.8 V with 10 kHz signal. In this thermal stability test, the EO polymer modulator was placed on a thermoelectric cooler (TEC), which controlled the temperature of the modulator to be between 20°C and 110°C
bit error rate (BER) sensitivity curves for 100-Gbaud OOK transmission were analyzed for optical fiber links (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0-km Single-mode optical fiber (SMF)), which are likely to be used in intra-data center applications
Summary
THE exponential growth of interconnect bandwidth requirements for next-generation optical fiber links has driven an upgrade of Ethernet products to 200 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 400 GbE. Various types of EO modulators based on efficient optoelectronic platforms, such as silicon [1], indium phosphide [2], and lithium niobate [3], have been fabricated These modulators are essential for achieving a low driving voltage, an expanded bandwidth, a small footprint, and CMOS-compatible integration. Among modulators made with various types of materials, EO polymers have demonstrated high-speed modulation at rates of more than 100-Gbaud and efficient electrical energy dissipation [4]. The modulators showed little performance degradation after storage at 105°C for longer than 2,000 h [10] This is the best thermal stability, to the best of our knowledge, reported for polymer-based modulators. This study extends our earlier work on high-speed EO polymer modulators by performing thermal stability tests for a fiber-link application over a distance of 2.0-km. The RF driving voltage, bandwidth, 100-Gbaud OOK, fiber-link, and bit-error rate were measured at temperatures of up to 100°C
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