Optical isolator using two tandem phase modulators

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate an integrated optical isolator in InP using two phase modulators in series. The phase modulators are driven with a single-frequency signal in quadrature. Theoretically there is no effect on the forward signal, and the carrier of the backward signal can be eliminated, the energy distributed to other frequencies. We achieve a carrier isolation of 11 dB and an excess insertion loss of 2.3 dB. Such an isolator can be monolithically integrated with a laser without extra materials or magnetic fields.