Optical Fiber Communications

External Modulators

Yasser M. Sabry, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Ain Shams University
Cairo, Egypt
Fall 2022-2023
 External modulators
• Problem:
1) The bandwidth of directly modulated (DM) diodes is limited
2) The frequency of oscillation changes with the DM diodes
current
• Separate the modulation from the source
1) Allows laser diode to run CW with feedback for ultrastable operation.
2) Diode properties don’t affect bandwidth
3) But add more components (complexity)

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 Approaches of external modulator
• Two main approaches in integrated optics:
1) Electro-Absorption (EA) modulator  α= α(Vap)
• Control the waveguide absorption by the applied voltage
Pin Pin exp(-αL)
WG

2) Electro-Optic (EO) modulator  n= n(Vap)

• Control the refractive index by the applied voltage
+V
Pin n+Δn Pin cos2 (pV/2Vp)
n

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 Electro-optic modulation
• Change in the index of refraction produced by the application
of an electric field
• Have linear (Pockels effect) and nonlinear (Kerr effect)
components.
– Linear  Δn ~ E
– Non-linear Δn ~ I ~ |E|2

• In crystalline solids, the change in index produced by the

linear electro-optic effect >> the non-linear effect. Occurs in
crystals that lack inversion symmetry such as Lithium Niobate

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 Electro-optic coefficients
• Refractive index in terms of electric field
linear non-linear

• The electric impermeability

• The electro-optic coefficient r and s

• For the Pockels effect (Kerr effect neglected):

Typical values of r lie in the range 1-100 pm/V.
Most common are lithium niobate (LiNbO3),
lithium tantalate (LiTaO3),

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 Phase modulator
Output light

Input light

The parameter Vπ, known as the half-wave

voltage, is the applied voltage at which the
phase shift changes by π

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 BW limit by the transit time

• If the voltage V(t) varies significantly within the light transit time T, the
traveling optical wave will be subjected to different applied voltage as it
traverses the crystal. The modulated phase at a given time t will then be
proportional to the average voltage at times from t - T to t. As a result, the
transit-time-limited modulation bandwidth is = l/T.
• One solution can be to design the EO cell as strip-line transmission line,
whose velocity is matched to that of the light.

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 Waveguide-based PM

• The waveguide is fabricated in an electro-optic substrate

(often LiNbO,) by diffusing a material such as titanium to
increase the refractive index.
• The half-wave voltage can be as small as a few volts and the
BW can be in excess of 100 GHz.

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 Intensity modulation
• EO Mach-Zehnder interferometer +V
n=n(Vap)
 n => n + Dn
b => b + Db

Ein  jb1L  jb2 L )

Eop = e +e  -V
2
Ein  j ( b Db ) L  j ( b +Db ) L)
Eop = e +e  = Eine jb L cos  Db L 
2

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 Modulator response
• For lossless modulator:
Pout = Pin cos2 (pV/2Vp)

Pout/Pin
• Design methodology:
a) To reduce Vp  increase length
b) To increase bandwidth  reduce length
c) For good Linearity  bias @ Vp/2
V/Vp
• Specifications:
a) Figure of merit = BW/Vp
b) Insertion loss (dB) = 10 log10 (Imax/It), It is the transmitted intensity in
absence of the modulator
c) Extinction ratio (dB) = 10 log10 (Imax/Imin)
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 Example Lithium Niobate modulator

BW: It is the difference between the upper and

lower frequencies at which the extinction ratio
falls to 50% of its maximum value

http://www.coretk.com/CataLog/cata_img/FILE/Others/EOSPACE/Intensity-Modulator/40Gbps/30_44_1455018397.pdf

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 Specifications of intensity modulators
1) Modulation depth/index (η)

where I is the transmitted intensity and I0 is the value of I with no electrical

signal applied. The maximum modulation depth is called the extinction ratio
2) Bandwidth (Δf)
• It is the difference between the upper and lower frequencies at
which the modulation depth falls to 50% of its maximum value
The switching time:
3) Insertion loss (Li)
Im
where It is the transmitted intensity in the absence of the modulator and Im is the
maximum value of I

4) Power consumption per unit BW (P/Δf) (mW/MHZ)

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 Electro-absorption modulation
• Franz–Keldysh effect, i.e., a change in the absorption spectrum caused by an
applied electric field F, which changes the band gap energy (thus
the photon energy of an absorption edge).

 Tunneling allows overlap of electron and hole wavefunctions for photon

energy less than bandgap
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 Quantum-confined Stark effect
• EA modulators usually exploits the quantum-confined Stark
effect in a quantum well structure.

Redshift towards lower energies

of the optical transitions

https://www.rp-photonics.com/electroabsorption_modulators.html

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 Integrated EA modulator

https://www.lightwaveonline.com/home/article/16649041/electroabsorptionmodulated-dfb-laser-ready-to-attack-10gbitsec-market

2 November 2022 Optical Communications The Y-Junction (15)