We investigated the photochemical stability of an electro-optic (EO) polymer under laser irradiation at 1310nm to reveal photodegradation mechanisms. It was found that one-photon absorption excitation assisted with the thermal energy at the temperature is involved in the photodegradation process, in contrast to our previous studies at a wavelength of 1550nm where two-photon absorption excitation is involved in the photodegradation process. Thus, both the excitation wavelength and the thermal energy strongly affect to the degradation mechanism. In any cases, the photodegradation of EO polymers is mainly related to the generation of exited singlet oxygen.

This paper proposes a design of high-speed interconnection between optical modules and electrical modules via bonding-wires and coplanar waveguide transmission lines on printed circuit boards for 400 Gbps 4-channel optical communication systems. In order to broaden the interconnection bandwidth, interdigitated capacitors were integrated with GSG pads on chip for the first time. Simulation results indicate the reflection coefficient is below -10 dB from DC to 53 GHz and the insertion loss is below 1 dB from DC to 45 GHz. Both indicators show that the proposed interconnection structure can effectively satisfy the communication bandwidth requirements of 100-Gbps or even higher data-rate PAM4 signals.

A new structure of the electro-optic modulator to compensate the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) is introduced. The modulator includes two Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs) operating with frequency chirp and the two modulated outputs are combined with an adequate phase difference. We revealed by theoretical analysis and numerical calculations that the IMD3 components in the receiver output could be selectively suppressed when the two MZMs operate with chirp parameters of opposite signs to each other. Spectral power of the IMD3 components in the proposed modulator was more than 15dB lower than that in a normal Mach-Zehnder modulator at modulation index between 0.15π and 0.25π rad. The IMD3 compensation properties of the proposed modulator was experimentally confirmed by using a dual parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) structure. We designed and fabricated the modulator with the single-chip structure and the single-input operation by integrating with 180° hybrid coupler on the modulator substrate. Modulation signals were applied to each modulation electrode by the 180° hybrid coupler to set the chirp parameters of two MZMs of the DPMZM. The properties of the fabricated modulator were measured by using 10GHz two-tone signals. The performance of the IMD3 compensation agreed with that in the calculation. It was confirmed that the IMD3 compensation could be realized even by the fabricated modulator structure.

We present the first demonstration of an electro-optic modulator based on a photolithographically fabricated photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity with a p-i-n junction with SiO2 cladding. We show that the device exhibits an ultrahigh quality factor (Q∼105) and allow us to demonstrate electro-optic modulation through the integrated p-i-n diode structure. We demonstrate an electro-optic modulation based on the carrier injection.

An electro-optic (EO) modulator integrated with the microwave planar circuit directly formed on a LiNbO3 (LN) substrate for low frequency-chirp performance and compact configuration is introduced. Frequency chirp of EO intensity modulators was investigated and a dual-electrode Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator combined with a microwave rat-race (RR) circuit was considered for the low-chirp modulation. The RR circuit, which operates as a 180-degree hybrid, was designed on a z-cut LN substrate to create two modulation signals of the same amplitude in anti-phase with each other from a single input signal. Output ports of the RR were connected to the modulation electrodes on the substrate. The two signals of the equal amplitude drive two phase modulation parts of the modulator so that the symmetric interference are realized to obtain intensity modulation of low frequency-chirp. The modulator was designed and fabricated on a single LN substrate for around 10 GHz modulation frequencies and 1550 nm light wavelength. The chirp parameters were measured to be less than 0.2 in the frequency range between 8 and 12 GHz. By compensating imbalance of the light power splitting in the waveguide MZ interferometer the chirp could be reduced even more.

In this paper, we present a new electro-optic (EO) probing system based on heterodyne detection. The use of a recirculating frequency shifter allows to expand the bandwidth of the system far beyond what is attainable with a conventional heterodyne EO set-up. The performance for the frequencies up to 50GHz is analysed to forecast the viability of the system up to the THz range.

Optical single sideband (SSB) modulation with the Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer was realized by integrating the modulation electrode with the branch-line coupler (BLC) as a 90-degree hybrid onto the modulator substrate. In this paper, BLCs of the microsrtip-line structure were miniaturized on modulator substrates, LiNbO3 (LN), to realize more compact optical SSB modulators. We introduced two techniques of miniaturizing the BLC, one is using periodically installed open-circuited stabs and the other is installing series capacitors. Compared with a conventional pattern of the BLC, an area of the miniaturized BLC by using periodically installed open-circuited stubs was reduced to about 50%, and that by installing series capacitors was done to about 60%. The operation of these miniaturized BLCs was experimentally confirmed as the 90-degree hybrid at around 10GHz. Output ports of each miniaturized BLC were directly connected with the modulation electrode on the modulator substrate. Thereby, we fabricated two types of compact SSB modulators for 1550nm light wavelength. In the experiments, the optical SSB modulation was successfully confirmed by the output light spectra and the sideband suppression ratio of more than 30dB were observed.

A transmission ellipsometric method without an aperture was recently developed to characterize the electro-optic (EO) performance of EO polymers. The method permits much simpler optical setup compared to the reflection method, and allows easy performance of the incident angle dependence measurements using a conventional glass substrate and uncollimated beam. This paper shows the usefulness of this method for a simple and reliable evaluation of the EO coefficient both for organic and inorganic EO materials, as well as analysis for uniaxial anisotropic materials.

We fabricated high-quality domain-inverted MgO: LiNbO$_3$ structures with 3.0 and 2.0~$mu$m periods using applying votage to the corrugation electrode. We found that keeping the crystal temperature at 150$^{circ}$C for 12 hours before applying voltage was effective for obtaining good uniformity. We also demonstrated an application of the structures with 3.0~$mu$m period to electro-optic Bragg deflection modulator for the first time.

Quasi-phase-matching (QPM) electro-optic modulators using gap-embedded patch-antennas were proposed for improving wireless microwave-optical signal conversion. The proposed QPM devices can receive wireless microwave signals and convert them to optical signals directly. The QPM structures enable us to have twice antenna elements in the fixed device length. The device operations with improved conversion efficiency of 10 dB were experimentally demonstrated at a wireless signal frequency of 26 GHz. The proposed QPM devices were also tested to a wireless-over-fiber link.

We propose new electro-optic modulators using a double antenna-coupled electrode structure for radio-over-fiber systems. The proposed modulators are composed of a pair of patch antennas and a standing-wave resonant electrode. By utilizing a pair of patch antennas on SiO2 substrates and a coupled-microstrip line resonant electrode on a LiNbO3 substrate with a symmetric configuration, high-efficiency optical modulation is obtainable for 24 optical waveguides at the same time. The proposed modulators were designed at 58 GHz and their basic operations were demonstrated successfully with an improvement of 9 dB compared to a single antenna-coupled electrode device on a LiNbO3 substrate in our previous work.

A novel and compact electro-optic modulator implemented by a combination of a 12 multimode interference (MMI) coupler and an integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) modulator consisting of a microring and a phase modulator (PM) is presented and analyzed theoretically. It is shown that the proposed modulator offers both ultra-linearity and high output RF gain simultaneously, with no requirements for complicated and precise direct current (DC) control.

A complete analysis of GaN-based structures with very promising characteristics for future optical waveguide devices, such as modulators, is presented. First the material growth was optimized for low dislocation density and surface roughness. Optical measurements demonstrate excellent waveguide properties in terms of index and temperature dependence while planar propagation losses are below 1 dB/cm. Bias was applied on both sides of the epitaxially grown films to evaluate the refractive index dependence on reverse voltage and a variation of 2.10-3 was found for 30 V. These results support the possibility of using structures of this type for the fabrication of modulator devices such as Mach-Zehnder interferometers.

We propose a polarization-multiplexing QPSK modulator for synthesis of a 16 QAM signal. The generation mechanism of 16 QAM is based on an electro-optic vector digital-to-analog converter, which can generate optical multilevel signals from binary electric data sequences. A quad-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (QPMZM) used in our previous research requires precise control of electric signals or fabrication of a variable optical attenuator, which significantly raises the degree of difficulty to control electric signals or device fabrication. To overcome this difficulty, we developed the polarization-multiplexing QPSK modulator, which improved the method of superposition of QPSK signals. In the polarization-multiplexing QPSK modulator, two QPSK signals are output with orthogonal polarization and superposed through a polarizer. The amplitude ratio between the two QPSK signals can be precisely controlled by rotating the polarizer to arrange the 16 symbols equally. Generation of 16 QAM with 40 Gb/s and a bit error rate of 5.6910-5 was successfully demonstrated using the polarization-multiplexing QPSK modulator. This modulator has simpler configuration than the previous one, utilized a dual-polarization MZM, alleviating complicated control of electric signals.

This paper proposes and verifies a specific absorption rate (SAR) measurement procedure for multi-antenna transmitters that requires measurement of two-dimensional electric field distributions for the number of antennas and calculation in order to obtain the three-dimensional SAR distributions for arbitrary weighting coefficients of the antennas prior to determining the average SAR. The proposed procedure is verified based on Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) calculation and measurement using electro-optic (EO) probes. For two reference dipoles, the differences in the 10 g SAR obtained based on the proposed procedure compared numerically and experimentally to that based on the original calculated three-dimensional SAR distribution are at most 4.8% and 3.6%, respectively, at 1950 MHz. At 3500 MHz, this difference is at most 5.2% in the numerical verification.

We propose a novel short-range wireless communications technology that uses quasi-static electric fields; it enables data communication between devices separated by up to 10 cm via dielectric media at a speed of 10 Mbps. It is considered to be a secure wireless technology since communication area is restricted to below about 10 cm. To suppress electromagnetic radiation, we adopted a baseband transmission scheme in which the quasi-static electric field is directly modulated by 10 BASE-T data signals. Since the spectra of the data signals are concentrated to below 20 MHz, the amplitude of the electric field rapidly decreases outside the communication area. This contributes to enhancing security of the communications system. In this paper, we explain a basic principle of the short-range wireless communications technology. Since baseband data signals are carried by the quasi-static electric field, the quality of the communication is easily degraded by the existence of the earth ground. To isolate the communications system from the earth ground, we introduce a novel electro-optic sensor to receive the quasi-static electric field. With the electro-optic sensor, stable data communication is possible at 10 Mbps via dielectric materials, such as a wooden table.

We fabricated a high-speed wavelength tunable arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) and an AWG integrated with optical switches using (Pb,La)(Zr,Ti)O3-(PLZT). PLZT has a high electro-optic (EO) coefficient, which means these devices have considerable potential for use in reconfigurable optical add drop multiplexers (ROADMs). The PLZT waveguides in this work have a rib waveguide structure with an effective relative index difference (Δ) of 0.65%. Both AWGs have 8 channels with a frequency spacing of 500 GHz. The fabricated wavelength tunable AWGs allows us to freely shift the output at a particular wavelength to an arbitrary port by applying voltages to 3 mm long electrodes formed on each of the waveguides. We confirmed that the maximum tuning range with driving voltage of 22 V was approximately 32 nm at 1.55 µm. With the integrated 8-ch PLZT waveguide switch array, we could also select the output port by setting the drive voltage applied to the switch array. 2 2 directional coupler switches were used for the switch array. The two devices exhibited insertion losses of 17 dB and 19 dB, adjacent crosstalk of -18.5 dB and -19.7 dB, and a maximum extinction ratio of 19.6 dB and 12.6 dB, respectively. The tuning speed of both devices was 15 ns and their physical sizes were 9.0 23.0 mm and 8.0 29.5 mm, respectively.

A prototype of a three-axis electro-optic (EO) probe is developed that has the linearity of approximately 0.5 dB in the specific absorption rate (SAR) range of 0.01 to 100 W/kg and the directivities are eight-shaped with cross-axis sensitivity isolation of greater than 30 dB. It is confirmed that electric fields and SAR distributions can be measured using a three-axis EO probe.

In this review paper we showcase recent activities on silicon photonics science and technology research in Hong Kong regarding two important topical areas--microresonator devices and optical nonlinearities. Our work on silicon microresonator filters, switches and modulators have shown promise for the nascent development of on-chip optoelectronic signal processing systems, while our studies on optical nonlinearities have contributed to basic understanding of silicon-based optically-pumped light sources and helium-implanted detectors. Here, we review our various passive and electro-optic active microresonator devices including (i) cascaded microring resonator cross-connect filters, (ii) NRZ-to-PRZ data format converters using a microring resonator notch filter, (iii) GHz-speed carrier-injection-based microring resonator modulators and 0.5-GHz-speed carrier-injection-based microdisk resonator modulators, and (iv) electrically reconfigurable microring resonator add-drop filters and electro-optic logic switches using interferometric resonance control. On the nonlinear waveguide front, we review the main nonlinear optical effects in silicon, and show that even at fairly modest average powers two-photon absorption and the accompanied free-carrier linear absorption could lead to optical limiting and a dramatic reduction in the effective lengths of nonlinear devices.

We have developed a near-field mapping system with a fiber-based electro-optic (EO) probe for microwave antenna characterization. In this probe, an EO crystal is mounted on the tip of an optical fiber through a collimating lens. Since the lens allows the crystal thickness to be lengthened by reducing the loss of an optical beam coupling back to the optical fiber, sensitivity is improved. Because the tip of the EO probe consists of a 1-mm-cubic EO crystal and contains no metallic components, there is very little disturbance of the mapped electric field. Fixing the optical fiber in a thin glass tube provides stable sensitivity during long-term mapping over a large area. The fabricated EO probe has a dynamic range larger than 45 dB, flat sensitivity from 1.95 to 20 GHz, and directivity with cross-axis sensitivity isolation greater than 30 dB. A comparison of the measured and calculated near fields of a dipole antenna showed negligible static or inductive coupling between the EO probe and the dipole antenna. Using a tissue-equivalent phantom to assess the specific absorption rate (SAR), we demonstrated the potential of the EO probe for mapping the electric field with information of amplitude and phase. The EO probe can detect an electric field of less than 0.6 V/m, which corresponds to a SAR of 0.5 mW/kg. This value satisfies the minimum detection limit defined in the regulations for determining SAR. This result shows the potential of the near-field mapping system with the fiber-based EO probe in practical applications.