POLYMER-BASED HIGHLY MULTIMODE ELECTROOPTIC WAVE-GUIDE MODULATOR

A unidirectional electro-optic modulator based on an asymmetrical high ly multimode waveguide coupler is proposed. To achieve high switching performance in a guided-wave coupler, a grating-based dumping wall is placed on the larger waveguide. This dumping effect makes the asymmetr ic highly multimode waveguide coupler possess a highly efficient unidi rectional coupling process. A high modulation depth of 99% is experime ntally achieved at 633 nm wavelength with an index modulation of 3.0 X 10(-4). This device can be used for multimode optical interconnection systems such as data communications and fiber sensor networks. (C) 19 98 American Institute of Physics.