Integrated Optical Electric Field Sensor Based on Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder Interferometer With Straight Waveguide Arms

Abstract

In this paper, an asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer with straight waveguide arms based integrated optical electric field sensor is proposed. Compared with the present reported integrated optical electric field sensors, the proposed sensor has relatively lower transmission loss, higher extinction ratio, much larger linear measurable range, and better thermal stability. The transmission loss of the device is demonstrated to be as low as 6 dB and the extinction ratio is as high as 35 dB. Moreover, the sensor has a linear measurable range of approximately 34 dB and the minimal detectable electric field strength of 10 V/m is achieved in the experiments. Combining the wavelength tuning technique, the thermal variations in the sensor bias have fallen from around 120 degrees down to be 2 degrees with the temperature ranging from 24°C to 70°C. These results are very encouraging toward the development of integrated optical electric field sensing systems in the practical applications.