Optical Intensity Modulator Based on the grating-Corrugated Electro-optic Polymer Waveguide

Abstract

The performance of the optical intensity modulator based on the concept of electrically tunable reflection grating is examined theoretically when the device is realized by using an electro-optic (EO) polymer waveguide. Various combinations of device parameters, e.g. grating coupling coefficient, propagation loss, waveguide length, are considered to find the highly efficient optical modulator with low V . It is shown that the propagation loss of the EO polymer waveguide is currently the biggest obstacle to overcome to achieve an optical modulator with higher efficiency. Consideration is also given to the bandwidth and RF gain.