LONG LIFETIME PROJECTIONS FOR ANNEALED PROTON-EXCHANGED WAVE-GUIDE DEVICES

The lifetime of annealed proton-exchanged (APE(TM)) waveguide devices has been studied using accelerated aging. Y-fed Balanced-Bridge Modula tor (YBBM) devices were aged at elevated temperatures and characterize d as a function of aging time. The measured activation energy of 1.3 e V indicates that hydrogen diffusion is the dominant degradation mechan ism. Insertion loss, modulator half wave voltage, and y-branch split r atio are found to be insensitive to aging. Extrapolations indicate tha t degradation of the YBBM device is negligible at temperatures of 95-d egrees-C or below and an operating/storage temperature as high as 125- degrees-C can be sustained for 13 yr with little effect.