Hybrid electro-optic polymer modulators for RF photonics

Electro-optic polymers have long held interest for RF photonics due to both their exceptionally large intrinsic bandwidth in traveling wave modulator geometries and, more recently, as a result of significant improvements in the electro-optic (EO) figure of merit. We will discuss our use of state-of-the-art EO polymers in hybrid device formats [1-4], where the polymer is integrated with sol-gel, glass or silicon waveguide structures in order to improve reliability and performance of the modulator. The current status of the technology in terms of key RF photonics figures of merit such as link gain and noise figure is also assessed.