<title>RF photonics and polymer devices</title>

Abstract

Electro-optic modulators have been widely used in high power, large link budget fiber-optic transmitters for both RF and digital signal transmission applications. The recent development of high performance electro-optic polymers has demonstrated a promising future for these materials in the fabrication of a new generation of electro-optic modulators, switches, switch arrays and other integrated optic devices. The low dielectric constant, flexibility in device processing, compatibility with semiconductor technology, and potentially very large electro-optic coefficient are very attractive features for wide-band, high efficiency waveguide devices. To investigate the feasibility of using the new class of materials in electro-optic modulator and switch applications, we have fabricated both Mach Zehnder and straight channel electro-optic modulators and several types of optical switches using electro-optic polymers. The polymer layers are thermally relating to the system performance, such as half-wave voltage, RF bandwidth, photochemical stability, bias voltage stability, and thermal stability are tested for multiband RF photonic transmission systems and network switching applications. Optical push- pull techniques allow reduction in halfwave voltage, and halfwave voltages of 1V or less appear feasible in very broadband polymer devices.