آرایه مدولاتور الکترو نوری پهن باند پلیمری مبتنی بر اتصال یک سویه بین آرایه موجبر چند حالته و یک دامپینگ عمودی تنظیم شده موجبر مسطح

A polymeric wide-band electro-optic (EO) modulator array based on unidirectional mode-coupling between the guiding multi-mode waveguide array and a vertical configured planar dumping waveguide was developed. A low insertion loss of <1.7 dB was obtained due to asymmetrically designed guiding waveguide and the dumping waveguide. A modulation depth of 91% was achieved with the device length of 3.5 cm at a low driving voltage of 3.2 V. The employment of the dumping planar waveguide not only provides an efficient way to achieve the unidirectional coupling mechanism, but also effectively confines the light coupled from the guiding waveguides within the planar dumping waveguide. The combination of unidirectional coupling and light confinement effects ensures low cross talk of <22 dB between adjacent guiding waveguides. Since the proposed modulator is based on the unidirectional coupling mechanism, it is intrinsically wide-band. A wide-band operation from 1308 to 1324 nm was experimentally obtained. The unidirectional mode-coupling-based wide-band modulation principle can be readily applied to other wavelengths, such as 1330 and 1550 nm ranges.

The proliferation of data, voice, and video communications has strained the capacity of conventional networks and motivated research on all-optical networks [1], [2] and [3]. In all-optical networks, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), optical switching and wavelength routing technologies are employed to multiplex/de-multiplex, reroute and split or tap optical signals to different networks and nodes [4], [5] and [6]. To make the WDM optical networks reconfigurable and reduce the high costs associated with individual designs and fabrications of different wavelengths, tunable laser sources and wide-band electro-optic (EO) modulator are highly desired for low-cost metro-optical networks. Polymeric single-mode optical waveguide-based EO modulators have been investigated and high modulation bandwidth (>10 Gbit/s) has been demonstrated [7], [8] and [9]. However, most of the demonstrated polymer waveguide modulators are based on interference mechanism, which is intrinsically wavelength sensitive. The wavelength sensitivity not only introduces design and fabrication difficulties, but also seriously limits the modulator's application in dynamic reconfigurable optical network. To address the wavelength sensitivity issue, we have developed an EO modulator based on a unidirectional coupling mechanism [10] and [11]. In this paper, we present a wide-band EO modulator array based on the unidirectional coupling mechanism. A low insertion loss of <1.7 dB was obtained due to asymmetrically designed guiding waveguide and the dumping waveguide. A modulation depth of 91% was achieved with the device length of 3.5 cm at a low driving voltage of 3.2 V. A low cross talk of <22 dB between the guiding waveguides was achieved due to the unidirectional coupling mechanism and the effective light confinement provided by the dumping planar waveguide. Since the proposed modulator array is based on the unidirectional coupling mechanism, it is intrinsically wide band. A wide-band operation from 1308 to 1324 nm was experimentally demonstrated. Based on the same unidirectional mode-coupling-based wide-band modulation principle, wide-band EO modulators working other wavelengths, such as 1330 and 1550 nm ranges can be achieved.

We have reported a wide-band polymeric multi-mode waveguide EO modulator based on unidirectional coupling mechanism with a vertical configured planar waveguide. Unlike traditional interference-based EO modulator, the proposed modulator is based on the unidirectional coupling mechanism, which is intrinsically wavelength insensitive. A modulation depth of 91% was experimentally achieved from 1308 to 1324 nm. A low insertion loss of 1.7 dB was obtained. Due to the light confinement and the unidirectional coupling mechanism introduced by the vertically configured planar waveguide, low multi-channel cross talk of <22 dB was achieved. The unidirectional mode-coupling-based wide-band modulation principle can be readily applied to other wavelengths, such as 1330 and 1550 nm ranges. This device shows that the multi-mode optical waveguide with the vertically configured dumping planar waveguide is promising in wide-band EA modulator designs.