A new integrable optical modulatorhyphen;switch optimized for speed and power consumption

摘要

A new structure of planar waveguide directional coupler/switch composed of layered GaAs/AlGaAs is proposed and analyzed. This new configuration maximizes the change of coupling between adjacent guides while retaining their phase synchronism. This scheme provides, theoretically, a depth of modulation of 100percnt;, a smaller device length with low drive power requirement, and an ability to compensate for dimensional offset by simple voltage tuning. Most importantly, this design is monolithically integrable with heterojunction laser sources. Projected operation limited by phase mismatch of the electrical and optical signals is above 12 GHz and a power per unit bandwidth of 280 mgr;W/MHz is expected.