Miniature Fourier transform spectrometer based on wavelength dependence of half-wave voltage of a LiNbO_3 waveguide interferometer

Abstract

A simple and reliable spectrum-retrieval method was proposed for the development of miniature stationary Fourier transform (FT) spectrometers based on a LiNbO₃ (LN) waveguide Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) modulator. The method takes into account the wavelength dependence of the optical pathlength difference (OPD) and allows us to use a nonlinear voltage ramp to modulate the OPD. The method is based on the dispersion of the half-wave voltage, which was measured to be a monotonous polynomial function of the wavelength for the LN waveguide MZI used. With the measured dispersion of the half-wave voltage, the OPD, as a linear function of the modulating voltage, can be accurately determined at each wavelength in the near-infrared region in which the MZI used is a single-mode device. A prototype FT spectrometer was prepared using a LN waveguide MZI modulator based on the above method. The experimental results demonstrated that the spectrometer can be used for accurate determination of the laser wavelength and for liquid absorptiometry.