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Hybrid polymer/sol–gel waveguide modulators with exceptionally large electro–optic coefficients

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 180–185 (2007)Cite this article

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 01 July 2007

Abstract

Electro–optic (EO) modulators are typically made from inorganic materials such as LiNbO3, but replacing them with organic EO materials, that is, ones with optical properties that change in response to an electric field, could be a promising alternative because they offer large bandwidth, ease of processing and relatively low cost. Here we incorporate a doped, crosslinked organic EO polymer into hybrid polymer/sol–gel waveguide modulator devices with exceptional performance. The half-wave voltages of the resulting Mach–Zehnder (MZ) and phase modulators at 1550 nm are 1 V and 2.5 V, respectively. The unique properties of the sol–gel cladding materials used in the hybrid structure result in a 100% device poling efficiency, leading to respective in-device EO coefficients of 138 pm V–1 and 170 pm V–1 in the MZ and phase modulators. These results are the first to show in-device EO coefficients that are five to six times larger than those of the benchmark inorganic material.

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Figure 1: Crosslinked guest–host polymers with EO chromophores.
Figure 2: Stability of the EO coefficient.
Figure 3: The device structure in the active region.
Figure 5: Measurement of r33 values, indicating their stability.
Figure 4: Low-frequency modulator transfer-function measurement at 1,550 nm.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation MDITR Science and Technology Center through the University of Washington and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) MORPH program. Y.E. thanks the International Communication Foundation, Japan, for travel support. A.K.-Y.J. thanks the Boeing–Johnson Foundation for its support. The authors would also like to thank Lumera Corporation for providing some of the materials in collaboration with the University of Washington, and Warren Herman for his critical reading of the manuscript and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, Arizona, USA

    Y. Enami, C. T. Derose, D. Mathine, C. Loychik, C. Greenlee, R. A. Norwood & N. Peyghambarian

  2. Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195-2120, Washington, USA

    T. D. Kim, J. Luo, Y. Tian & A. K.-Y. Jen

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  1. Y. Enami
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Correspondence to N. Peyghambarian.

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Enami, Y., Derose, C., Mathine, D. et al. Hybrid polymer/sol–gel waveguide modulators with exceptionally large electro–optic coefficients. Nature Photon 1, 180–185 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.25

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