SILICON BASED ELECTRO-OPTIC MODULATOR FOR GENERATING A HIGH SPEED OPTICAL OUTPUT SIGNAL MODULATED BY AN INPUT DATA PATTERN

摘要

An electro-optic modulator arrangement for achieving switching speeds greater than 1 Gb/s utilizes pre-emphasis pulses to accelerate the change in refractive index of the optical waveguide used to form the electro-optic modulator. In one embodiment, a feedback loop may be added to use a portion of the modulated optical output signal to adjust the magnitude and duration of the pre-emphasis pulses, as well as the various reference levels used for modulated. For free carrier-based electro­-optic modulators, including silicon-based electro-optic modulators, the pre-emphasis pulses are used to accelerate the movement of free carriers at the transitions between input signal data values.