High speed ultra-broadband amplitude modulators with ultrahigh extinction >65 dB

Journal Article · Thu May 04 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Optics Express

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1364/oe.25.011254· OSTI ID:1360934

Liu, S. ^[1]; Cai, H. ^[1]; DeRose, C. T. ^[1]; Davids, P. ^[1]; Pomerene, A. ^[1]; Starbuck, A. L. ^[1]; Trotter, D. C. ^[1]; Camacho, R. ^[1]; Urayama, J. ^[1]; Lentine, A. ^[1]

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1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Here, we experimentally demonstrate ultrahigh extinction ratio (>65 dB) amplitude modulators (AMs) that can be electrically tuned to operate across a broad spectral range of 160 nm from 1480 – 1640 nm and 95 nm from 1280 – 1375 nm. Our on-chip AMs employ one extra coupler compared with conventional Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI), thus form a cascaded MZI (CMZI) structure. Either directional or adiabatic couplers are used to compose the CMZI AMs and experimental comparisons are made between these two different structures. Furthermore, we investigate the performance of CMZI AMs under extreme conditions such as using 95:5 split ratio couplers and unbalanced waveguide losses. Electro-optic phase shifters are also integrated in the CMZI AMs for high-speed operation. Finally, we investigate the output optical phase when the amplitude is modulated, which provides us valuable information when both amplitude and phase are to be controlled. This demonstration not only paves the road to applications such as quantum information processing that requires high extinction ratio AMs but also significantly alleviates the tight fabrication tolerance needed for large-scale integrated photonics.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525
• OSTI ID: 1360934
• Report Number(s): SAND-2017-5006J; OPEXFF; 653226
• Journal Information: Optics Express, Vol. 25, Issue 10; ISSN 1094-4087
• Publisher: Optical Society of America (OSA)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS