Performance evaluation of waveguide phase modulators for coherent systems at 1.3 and 1.5 µm

Abstract

This article describes the fabrication and performance evaluation of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">X</tex> -cut and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Z</tex> -cut Ti:LiNbO <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</inf> traveling wave waveguide phase modulators designed for coherent systems applications at 1.3 and 1.5 μm. Details of device fabrication and measurements of phase shift as a function of optical wavelength, input polarization, modulation voltage, and modulation frequency are reported. Phase modulator performance in a 40-Mbit/s self-heterodyne coherent DPSK experiment is also discussed.