DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A MACH ZEHNDER INTERFEROMETER INTEGRATED IN LiNbO3

D. PRESTI; V. GUAREPI; A. FASCISZEWSKI; G. A. TORCHIA

Pucón

Conferencia; IX Conferencia RIAO/OPTILAS 2016; 2016

The huge growth of fiber optic networks has greatly increased the manufacture and innovation of technology products in the area of ​​optical communications. This fact is constantly driven by the increasing requirements demanded from the dense information flow for transmitting in the fiber optic to home networks (FTH), which today exceeds 100 GHz data rate. Overcoming these needs represents a key point in the improving of these new technologies. Among the conventional optical signal modulators that have been implemented in optical communication systems for transmitting Internet, CTVC, data signals etc. Mach Zehnder interferometers (MZI) are commonly used. This commercial photonic device is based on buried optical waveguides obtained by the well-known Titanium diffusion method on Lithium Niobate (LNB) wafers.In this work we present an alternative development of an optical modulator based in a Mach Zehnder (MZ) interferometer integrated in X cut Lithium Niobate (LNB) wafers. The optical circuits were fabricated by means of femtosecond laser writing on LNB samples under planar configuration. The optical circuit was designed by considering the bend radio and the length for the final device in order to minimize the losses and reduce the Vπ value. For these considerations, computational simulations were performed by using the RSOFT? commercial software. The electro-optics modulation was reached by adding metal electrodes on the surface on the sample through technological platform commonly used for Silicon such as lithography and sputtering techniques. The MZ modulators were coupled to fiber optics at the input and output by performing an alternative integration procedure which used photo-cured adhesive and homemade fiber hold system. Finally, the electro-optics modulator prototype was assembled in a metal box with single mode fiber connectors type FC-APC at the input/output and also this device includes four pin to voltage connection. The developed prototype supports single mode propagation at communications wavelengths (1.55 m). In this paper the main operation characteristics (Vπ, modulation bandwidth, extinction ratio, insertion losses, etc.) will be reported.