Ultra-Broadband Electro-Optic Modulators Based on Nonlinear Optical Organic Materials

The objective of this work is to use advanced nonlinear optical polymer materials for ultra-broadband, high performance electro-optical modulators. Polymer-based nonlinear optical materials can have large electro-optic coefficients, low and nondispersive dielectric constant, and greater fabrication flexibility compared to titanium in-diffused LiNbO3 or GaAs waveguide technology. Throughout the work we will emphasize the design of waveguide modulators which simultaneously address the frequency response, driving microwave power, optical insertion loss, optical damage threshold, and temporal and termal stability. We will evaluate new materials for these requirements, as well as their chemical stability, service life, and thermal-mechanical properties. Different device architectures that can best take advantages of these polymer materials will be investigated. The device fabrication techniques that are applicable and will have low cost will be investigated. The high frequency modulation detection systems will be surveyed and studied for their applicability to 100 GHz frequency range. In Phase I, a prototype modulator with 60 GHz frequency response will be constructed and tested to demonstrate the feasiblity of our modulator design and the detection scheme.