Design Optimization of Polymer Electro-Optic Modulators Using Inverted-Rib Optical Waveguide

Polymer electro-optic modulators are essential elemental components for opto-sensors and optical fiber communication system [1, 2, 3]. In this paper, we designed a low-loss polymer electro-optic modulator with an inverted-rib waveguide structure based on new fluorinated polyimides electro-optic materials, which has more advantages in the preparation and device performance parameters. Also we calculated the key modulator parameters, such as half wave voltage(V_π), characteristic impedance(Z_m), microwave equivalent refractive index(N_m), bandwidth(B_w), loss coefficient (α_o) in detail, according to different width, thickness and gap of electrode, then an optimized polymer electro-optic modulator structure with CPW electrode system was reported in theory. Finally, the simulation results show that the designed EOM has a low loss coefficient (α_o) of about 0.08 dB/cm/GHz^0.5 with a high frequency of 10 GHz at 1.55 μm.

I. INTRODUCTION

High-speed electro-optic modulators have extensive applications in sensor systems, analog fiber-optic transmission systems, phase array antennas, radio frequency (RF) phase shifters, and analog/digital micro-wave links [4, 5, 6]. The research of the electro-optic modulators has attracted attention in many commercial and military applications during the last decade.