Polymer Waveguide Birefringence Modulators

Author

Park, Su-Hyun ; Kim, Jun-Whee ; Oh, Min-Cheol ; Noh, Young-Ouk ; Lee, Hyung-Jong

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. Eng., Pusan Nat. Univ., Pusan, South Korea

Volume

24

Issue

10

fYear

2012

fDate

5/15/2012 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

845

Lastpage

847

Abstract

Birefringence modulators for controlling the phase retardation between transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) polarizations are demonstrated based on polymeric waveguides. Highly birefringent polymer material is incorporated to increase the polarization dependence of the thermo-optic (TO) effect. The TO coefficient for each polarization is measured using a Mach-Zehnder device, and the polarization dependence of the TO effect is found to be 1.0 × 10^-5/°C. By applying 70 mW of heating power with an integrated heater, π-phase difference is achievable between the TE and TM polarizations. For 45° input polarization, the output polarization is successfully modulated to cover the entire Poincare sphere.

Keywords

birefringence; optical modulation; optical polymers; optical waveguides; thermo-optical effects; π-phase difference; Mach-Zehnder device; Poincare sphere; output polarization; phase retardation; polarization dependence; polymer waveguide birefringence modulators; power 70 mW; thermo-optic effect; transverse electric polarizations; transverse magnetic polarizations; Heating; Indexes; Modulation; Optical fiber polarization; Optical polarization; Polymers; Integrated optics; optical polymers; optical waveguides; polarization modulation;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2012.2189000

Filename

6164220