Electro-optic polymer waveguide modulator based on the Pockels and Kerr effects

Haibin Yu,Kangye Li,Lei Chen,Xiaoxu Deng

doi:10.1117/1.oe.52.4.044601

Haibin Yu, Kangye Li + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1117/1.oe.52.4.044601

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Abstract

An electro-optic polymer waveguide modulator based on both Pockels and Kerr effects has been demonstrated. A conjugated polymer, poly (9,9-dioctyl-2,7-fluorene-co-benzo [c][1,2,5]thiadiazole-co-9-hexyl-3,6-carbazole), which has the delocalization of p-electrons and a push-pull structure along the main conjugated chain, exhibits the Pockels effect and still maintains the Kerr effect after corona-poling. By applying a direct current (DC) bias, the optical output of the modulator is roughly linearly to a modulation voltage, and the modulation depth is improved with the DC bias at fixed modulation voltage. The proposed modulator achieves a 2.18% modulation depth with 5 V p-p modulation triangular voltage and 90 V DC bias at 100 kHz by employing both the Pockels effect and Kerr effect.

Highlights

Polymer-based electro-optic (EO) modulators have been investigated and demonstrated because of their applications in many optoelectronic fields, such as optical communication system, optical signal processing, and optical measurement.[1,2] EO polymers are well known for their low dielectric constants and excellent velocity match between optical-wave and modulation microwave.[3,4] Waveguide modulators based on EO polymers are of great interest in view of their relatively simple and potentially low-cost fabrication procedures.[5]
Most of EO polymer modulators are based on the Pockels effect instead of the Kerr effect, as the quadratic electro-optic (QEO) coefficient is usually relatively much smaller than the Pockels coefficient.[7]
We report on an EO polymer waveguide modulator based both on the Pockels effect and the Kerr effect

Summary

Introduction

Polymer-based electro-optic (EO) modulators have been investigated and demonstrated because of their applications in many optoelectronic fields, such as optical communication system, optical signal processing, and optical measurement.[1,2] EO polymers are well known for their low dielectric constants and excellent velocity match between optical-wave and modulation microwave.[3,4] Waveguide modulators based on EO polymers are of great interest in view of their relatively simple and potentially low-cost fabrication procedures.[5]. By applying a direct current (DC) bias, the optical output of the device is roughly linearly to a modulation voltage, even though both the Pockels effect and Kerr effect are employed. A special feature of the proposed device is that the modulation depth is improved through increasing the DC bias without changing the modulation voltage. By utilizing the prism-waveguide configuration, the fabrication of the proposed modulator is very simple, in which only the spin coating technique and the vacuum sputtering technique are needed

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