On the figures of merit for electroabsorption waveguide modulators

ΓΔα/F and Δα/α₀ (where Δα is the absorption change, α₀ is the residual absorption, F is the applied electric field, and Γ is the optical confinement factor in the waveguide) have been separately proposed as the relevant figure of merit for electroabsorption waveguide modulators. Using a quantitative and systematic argument, the authors show that they are both necessary and important to the total performance of the modulator     

Integrated AlGaAs waveguide components for optical phase differencemeasurement and correction

A Y-junction interferometer phase measurement technique has been developed that is independent of the power or power ratio in the input arms. This technique was incorporated into a proof-of-concept AlGaAs guided-wave Mach-Zehnder interferometer to demonstrate the measurement and correction of a phase difference between the arms. In the first part of this paper, we describe the design, fabrication, and characterization of the individual AlGaAs dielectric-loaded rib waveguide components that were chosen to fabricate the proof-of-concept interferometer. These components include passive waveguides, bends and Y-junctions, and reverse-biased phase modulators. The composition of the waveguide layer was chosen so that these modulators would have low loss at the applied voltage required for maximum phase correction. The choice was based on electroabsorption measurements on test modulators as a function of the energy difference between the bandgap of the waveguide layer and the operating wavelength. The average propagation loss at 862 nm of the passive single-mode guides used was 1.1 dB/cm. The abrupt bend insertion loss was ~0.20 dB/bend for a 0.5° bend angle, and the Y-junction insertion loss was ~0.37 dB for 1.0° full angle. Two-mm-long p⁺ -n^--n⁺ phase modulators typically had V_π voltages of ~6.8 V. On a slightly modified structure, V _π voltages as low as 2.65 V were measured. In the last part of the paper, the proof-of-concept interferometer and test setup are described and recent phase difference measurement and correction data with intentional power imbalances greater than 90% between the interferometer arms are presented. These results demonstrate conclusively that the phase difference measurement and correction performance of the Y-junction interferometer technique are independent of the power ratio in the interferometer input arms for power ratios >10:1     

High-efficiency 1.3 /spl mu/m InAsP-GaInP MQW electroabsorption waveguide modulators for microwave fiber-optic links

High-efficiency electroabsorption waveguide modulators have been designed and fabricated using strain-compensated InAsP-GaInP multiple quantum wells at 1.32-/spl mu/m wavelength. A typical 200-/spl mu/m-long modulator exhibits a fiber-to-fiber optical insertion loss of 9 dB and an optical saturation intensity larger than 10 mW. The 3-dB electrical bandwidth is in excess of 20 GHz with a 50-/spl Omega/ load termination. When used in an analog microwave fiber-optic link without amplification, a RF link efficiency as high as -38 dB is achieved at 10 mW input optical carrier power. These analog link characteristics are the first reported using MQW electroabsorption waveguide modulators at 1.32 /spl mu/m.     

Low-loss 1.3-μm MQW electroabsorption modulators forhigh-linearity analog optical links

Low-loss InAsP-GaInP multiquantum-well electroabsorption waveguide modulators have been developed for transmitting microwaves as subcarriers over optical fibers. The fiber-to-fiber insertion loss is only 5 dB at 1.32-μm wavelength. The electrooptic slope efficiency of an 185-μm-long 11-GHz bandwidth device is equivalent to a Mach-Zehnder modulator with a V_π of 2.2 V. The linearity performance was characterized for a test link without any form of amplification. A RF-to-RF link efficiency of -25.5 dB, noise figure of 27 dB and suboctave spurious-free dynamic range of 114 dB.Hz^4/5 have been achieved with 16 mW input optical carrier power. The measured 3-dB electrical bandwidth exceeds 20 GHz for a 90-μm-long device     

1.6 GHz electroabsorption light modulation in InGaAsP/InP double heterostructures with strip-loaded planar waveguide

Low-voltage driving and high-speed modulations of InGaAsP/InP electroabsorption modulators with strip-loaded planar waveguide have been described. The modulators were fabricated from VPE-grown InGaAsP/InP double-heterostructure wafers. For ?=1.55 ?m incident light an extinction ratio of 20 dB was achieved with an applied voltage of ~?6 V. The insertion loss was 9.6 dB. The calibrated 3 dB bandwidth was 1.6 GHz.     

Electroabsorption properties of InGaAs/InAlAs multiple quantum wellstructures at 1.5 μm

The electroabsorption properties of InGaAs/InAlAs MQW structures are characterised in terms of Δα, Δα/F and Δα/α₀, where Δα is the electroabsorption, α₀ is the residual absorption coefficient under zero bias, and F is the applied electric field. The limitations of these structures for 1.5 μm modulators are primarily due to the relatively small Δα/F values as a result of the small well width. The results are compared with the literature     

High-speed InGaAsP/InP multiple quantum well, 1.55 mu m singlemode modulator

1.55 mu m single mode ridge waveguide modulators based on electroabsorption in InGaAsP/InP multiple quantum wells (MQW) are reported. A 10 dB extinction ratio was obtained by applying a 2 V drive voltage to a 100 mu m long device with a 3 dB on-state loss. The 3 dB cutoff frequency is 12.5 GHz.<>     

High-speed bulk InGaAsP-InP electroabsorption modulators withbandwidth in excess of 20 GHz

Bulk InGaAsP-InP electroabsorption optical modulators with high extinction ratio, low drive voltage, and high modulation bandwidth at λ=1.3 μm are reported. The devices have a tapered-fiber-to-modulator-to-tapered-fiber extinction ratio greater than 20 dB at a drive voltage of <5 V. Very low capacitance modulators (<0.2 pF) were fabricated using SiO₂ bonding pad isolation, resulting in a measured electrical modulation bandwidth in excess of 20 GHz     

Design of Low-Profile Millimeter-Wave Substrate Integrated Waveguide Power Divider/Combiner

A low-profile millimeter-wave substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) power divider/combiner is presented in this paper. The simplified model of this compact SIW power dividing/combining structure has been developed. Analysis based on equivalent circuits gives the design formula for perfect power dividing/combining. In order to verify the validity of the design method, a four-way SIW power divider/combiner circuit operating at Ka band is designed, fabricated and measured. Good agreement between simulated and measured results is found for the proposed passive power divider/combiner. Experiments on the four-way passive divider/combiner back-to-back design demonstrate a minimum overall insertion loss of 1.5 dB at 31.1 GHz, corresponding to a power-combining efficiency of 84%. The measured 10-dB return loss bandwidth is demonstrated to be 2.2 GHz, and its 0.5-dB bandwidth was 2 GHz.     

Sub-THz Four-Way Waveguide Power Combiner With Low Insertion Loss

A four-way waveguide power divider has been developed in sub-THz band. The waveguide power divider was achieved with the improved H-plane T-junction structure. By tuning the depth and width at the junction of the waveguide, the input impendence was matched and the two-way output power amplitude and phase were at the same level. The four-way power divider was realized by the concatenation of two same T-junction at the two output ports. A sub-THz four-way passive power combiner is designed, fabricated and measured. The measure results show that the measured insertion loss of the fabricated four-way passive power combiner is less than 1.2 dB whereas the input return loss is greater than 14.8 dB from 97.5 to 101.7 GHz. Experiments on the sub-THz four-way passive power combiner show that a minimum insertion loss of 1 dB has been achieved at about 99.5 GHz. The measured minimum insertion loss of the waveguide power divider is half of the insertion loss for the entire passive power combiner (0.5 dB), which corresponds to a power-combining efficiency of 89 %. The measured results agree with the simulated ones closely.     

Polarization-independent and ultra-high bandwidth electroabsorption modulator in multiquantum-well deep-ridge waveguide technology

Electroabsorption modulators with polarization-independence of transmission (TE/TM sensitivity <0.4 dB at 1550 nm) over a wide wavelength range from 1540-1560 nm have been realized using tensile-strained InGaAs and InGaAsP quantum wells. Both designs show 42-GHz modulation bandwidth with a high bandwidth-to-drive-voltage ratio of >23 GHz/V. Polarization insensitivity of modulator transmission and chirp is demonstrated. Technical realization has been done in ridge waveguide technology with low-pressure MOVPE, reactive ion etching (RIE) for semiconductor etching and polyimide for planarization.     

Broadband single- and double-balanced resistive HEMT monolithicmixers

A double-balanced (DB) 3-18 GHz and a single-balanced (SB) 2-16 GHz resistive HEMT monolithic mixer have been successfully developed. The DB mixer consists of a AlGaAs/InGaAs HEMT quad, an active LO balun, and two passive baluns for RF and IF. At 16 dBm LO power, this mixer achieves the conversion losses of 7.5-9 dB for 4-13 GHz RF and 7.5-11 dB for 3-18 GHz RF. The SB mixer consists of a pair of AlGaAs/InGaAs HEMT's, an active LO balun, a passive IF balun and a passive RF power divider. At 16 dBm LO power, this mixer achieves the conversion losses of 8-10 dB for 4-15 GHz RF and 8-11 dB for 2-16 GHz RF. The simulated conversion losses of both mixers are very much in agreement with the measured results. Also, the DB mixer achieves a third-order input intercept (IP₃) of +19.5 to +27.5 dBm for a 7-18 GHz RF and 1 GHz IF at a LO drive of 16 dBm while the SB mixer achieves an input IP ₃ of +20 to +28.5 dBm for 2 to 16 GHz RF and 1 GHz IF at a 16 dBm LO power. The bandwidth of the RF and LO frequencies are approximately 6:1 for the DB mixer and 8:1 for the SB mixer. The DB mixer of this work is believed to be the first reported DB resistive HEMT MMIC mixer covering such a broad bandwidth     

Large electroabsorption effect in GaInAs/InP multiple quantum well(MQW) optical modulator grown by OMVPE

To make short, high-speed electroabsorption modulators, it is necessary to use a material and device structure that displays a large change in absorption coefficient, Δα. The authors report a device with Δα=7800 cm^-1, which provides an on/off ratio of 44:1 at λ=1.6 μm with a drive voltage of 10 V     

Fabrication of variable bandwidth filters using arrayed-waveguidegratings

Variable bandwidth filters have been fabricated using silica-based N×N arrayed-waveguide gratings. The centre wavelengths are λ₀=1.55 μm for all channels. The 3 dB bandwidths are 40, 78, 116 and 154 GHz, for the filter with a path length difference ΔL=63 μm. In the filter with ΔL=8.6 μm, the 3 dB bandwidths are 414, 769, 1198 and 1608 GHz. The on-chip losses are 2.1-2.9 dB and sidemode suppression ratios are larger than 27 dB     

High speed III-V electrooptic waveguide modulators at λ-1.3μm

Traveling wave GaAs electrooptic waveguide modulators at a wavelength of 1.3 μm with bandwidth in excess of 20 GHz have been developed and characterized. The design and characteristics of both p-i-n modulators in microstrip configuration and Schottky barrier on n ^--GaAs/semi-insulating (SI) GaAs in the coplanar strip configuration modulators are discussed. It is shown that microwave loss and slowing on n⁺ GaAs substrates will limit the bandwidth of the microstrip modulator to less than 10 GHz for a device 8 mm in length. Modulators with bandwidths in excess of 10 GHz are fabricated on SI GaAs substrates     

Loss-imbalance equalization in arrayed waveguide-grating (AWG)multiplexer cascades

How to connect arrayed-waveguide-grating (AWG) multiplexers in cascade is discussed with the goal of equalizing the loss imbalance among frequency-division-multiplexed (FDM) channels. This paper proposes to average the FDM-channel loss over the cascaded multiplexers by shifting port connections between each adjacent multiplexer. A simulation predicts that, in a cascade of M periodic N×N multiplexers, shifting the connections by N/M reduces the loss imbalance from MΔα to Δα/M where Δα [dB] denotes the loss imbalance per multiplexer. This improvement will extend the cascadable node number in all-optical FDM networks. The prediction is confirmed experimentally in an optical add-drop filter (M=2) constructed with a silica-based AWG 16×16 multiplexer; the largest loss difference among 15 FDM channels is reduced from 5.0 dB to 1.5 dB. This paper also reports that imperfect multiplexer periodicity due to waveguide dispersion restricts the equalizable frequency bandwidth to less than several free spectral ranges (FSR's)     

一种Ka波段三路波导功率分配/合成器的设计

提出了一种波导三路功分器结构,该功分器采用E面T型缝隙耦合结构来实现功分比的调节。通过调节耦合缝隙以及感性膜片,使输入阻抗匹配并且实现等功率同相位的三路功分输出。为了实现功率合成,采用对称的两个三路功分器进行背靠背级联实现功率合成网络,仿真结果显示出良好的驻波效果和极低的插损。最终对加工出的实物进行测量,在32.5~36 GHz频段内实现了输出功率幅度不平衡度小于0.5 dB的良好效果。通过背靠背连接两个功分器实现了在33.3~35.3 GHz带宽内插损小于0.3 dB的功率分配/合成网络。     

Half Mode Substrate Integrated Waveguide (HMSIW) Directional Filter

A double-loop directional filter is described and realized in this work by using a novel guided-wave structure called half mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW), which retains the attractive performances of substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) with a nearly half reduction in size compared to the original SIW version. The demonstrated filter is designed at 12 GHz with less than 3.2 dB insertion loss for a 250-MHz bandwidth, and the minimum insertion loss is 1.5 dB. It presents low insertion loss, high power capacity in planar compact configuration with a standard PCB fabrication process.     

Millimetre-wave phase modulators with lumped-element circuitry

P.M. and a.m. puke modulators for millimetre waves are described that have been realised using a waveguide below-cutoff technique. This technique is well suited to the establishment of lumped elements of low loss, even in the millimetre wave region. Performance data of a 34 GHz phase modulator are a bandwidth of 12%, an insertion loss of 0.5 dB and switching times below 1 ns. An on-off switch shows 0.5 dB and more than 20 dB losses, respectively, over a 1 GHz frequency band.     

Millileter-Wave Power-Combining Amplifier Using A Broadband Waveguide Combiner

A Millimeter-wave power-combining amplifier based on the multi-way rectangular-waveguide power-dividing/combining circuit has been presented and investigated. The equivalent-circuit approach has been used to analyze the passive power-dividing/combining circuits. An eight-device amplifier is designed and measured to validate the power-dividing/combining mechanism using this technique. Both the measured 10-dB return loss bandwidth and the 2-dB insertion loss bandwidth of the passive system are more than 10?GHz. The measured maximum small-signal gain of the millimeter-wave eight-device power amplifier is 22.5?dB at 26.8?GHz with a 3-dB bandwidth of more than 6?GHz, while the input and output return loss of the proposed eight-device power amplifier is around ?10?dB from 26?GHz to 36?GHz. The measured maximum output power at 1-dB compression from the power amplifier is 28 dBm at 29.5?GHz.