<title>Electro-optic polymer modulator based on guided-wave resonance</title>

Abstract

A new type of electro-optic polymer modulator based on guided modes of the Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) spectrum is described and fabricated. Using a prism to couple a laser beam into a poled polymer thin film, it is found in its ATR spectrum that the fall-offs of the absorbance peaks corresponding to the guided modes can be considered linear. The angular positions of these fall-offs are sensitive to the dielectric coefficient of the poled polymer. If the operating interior angle of the modulator is properly chosen at the midst of these fall-offs, the intensity of the reflected light can be directly modulated by the applied electric field due to the electric-field-induced dielectric coefficient change in the poled polymer film. Compared with the conventional Electro-optical (EO) modulator based on waveguide technology, the insertion loss of the device can be greatly reduced; Compared with the EO modulator based on surface plasmon resonance, the driven voltage can be lessen because that guided wave resonance is much sharper than the surface plasmon resonance.