Abstract

High-speed high-performance optical phase modulators are being developed for use in a coherent Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) technology. These phase modulators are the critical component of a PIC program at Sandia National Laboratories targeted for microwave/millimeter-wave signal processing and control including phased-array antenna control. The primary design goals for these modulators are amenability for integration into PICs, high ``figure of merit`` (FOM -- phase shift per unit length-voltage), and large bandwidths allowing for operation at millimeter wave frequencies. Depletion-edge-translation optical phase modulators (GaAs/AlGaAs based) have been selected as the device technology of choice due to their high FOM (>60{degree}/V{center_dot}mm @ 1.3 {mu}m). These modulators unfortunately suffer from a large terminal capacitance which greatly limits speed. To overcome this problem, a distributed electrode design based on the use of slow-wave coplanar strips has been developed. Device design and measurements are presented in this paper.

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