Design of a lithium niobate 2D E-field photonic probe

Design of an optoelectronic sensor allowing the estimation of two E-field components is illustrated in this paper. The lithium niobate device, which includes two Mach-Zehnder modulators, an integrated beam splitter, and a segmented electrode antenna, has a minimum detectable field <; 1 mV/m and a bandwidth of about 8 GHz. The sensor can be used as basic building block of an array of identical devices to survey both amplitude and phase of the field. The probe would facilitate the antenna diagnosis with the aim of improving its effectiveness. The array applications for near-field and very near-field characterization of radiating systems are briefly discussed.