Optical Modulators

Brooks Maxwell

April 25, 2015

Electrooptic Devices and Systems

 There are three different types of optical modulators; bulk, integrated optical, and all-

fiber devices which are typically implemented as solid state devices. Through these devices light

is modulated by varying the optical properties by an electronic control signal to modulate

amplitude, phase, frequency and polarization. A control signal, not to be confused with the

optical input, is linked to the material properties by either an electrooptic, acoustopic or a

magnetooptic mechanism (Figure 1).

Integrated optical modulators (Figure 2b) are formed from wavequides fabricated

directly in the modulator material which results in the elimination of external optics for fiber

coupling as well as lower electrical power requirements. A number of these sensors are

currently commercially available in conjunction with ongoing research for further development.

All-fiber modulators (Figure 2c) are designed so the optical signal never leaves the fiber, which

is perturbed by the control signal to achieve the desired modulation, this eliminates the need

for fiber coupling optics and precision alignment. However, these are still in the research stage

due to the modulation characteristics of glass and other common fiber materials being

relatively weak thus requiring a relatively high drive power.

Bulk modulators (Figure 2a, Figure 3) are designed through which a signal proliferates

through a uniform block of material, despite their age of being commercially available they lack

waveguiding and thus require external optics to couple light in and out of optical fibers as well

as high electrical drive power. To achieve optical phase modulation within a bulk electrooptic

phase modulator the refractive index of the crystal is varied which then causes a change in the

optical path length; through this the phase modulation can be seen as linearly proportional to

voltage. In addition, electrooptic intensity modulation (Figure 4) can be recognized by the

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dependence on polarization of the phase modulator, to accomplish this effect the voltage of

the modulator is adjusted thus varying the polarization of the beam incident on the output

polarizer resulting in intensity modulation. It should be noted that the optical beam leaving the

modulator can be polarized linearly, circularly, or elliptically depending upon the phase

modulation. Acoustooptic modulators (Figure 5) work by a traveling-wave index agitation from

an acoustic wave interacting with an optical beam propogating through a crystal, these are

most commonly used as optical frequency shifters. The acoustooptic modulator operates in two

modes, the Raman-Nath regime and the Bragg Regime, the former creates multiple diffracted

beams which the relative intensities are dependent upon the acoustic power and interaction

length. The latter, the Bragg Regime, has only one diffracted beam along with the diffraction

being an optical frequency shift equal to that of the acoustic frequency and is commonly used

in fiber sensor applications. Due to the Bragg angle being frequency dependent the modulation

bandwidth is limited which is a clear indication that the bandwidth is inversely proportional to

the interaction length.

The linear electrooptic effect is due to the refractive indices of the crystals being linked

to an applied electric field, the effect is characterized in the context of optical beam

propagation through a crystal fiber resulting in an ellipsoid visualization form (Figure 6). Due to

crystal symmetry many electrooptic coefficients result in zero and several other groups

consisting of equal magnitudes. When the light propagates along either the x or y axis the two

resulting allowed states of linear polarization are parallel to the other two axes, in regards to

the light traveling along the z axis any state of linear polarization will propagate unchanged. It

should be advised that depending upon the electrooptic coefficient used polarization can be

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rotated which is dependent upon the directions of allowed linear polarization states and the

applied field.

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 References

Udd, Eric, William B. Spilllamn Jr. Fiber Optic Sensors An Introduction for Engineers and

Scientists. Hoboken, New Jersey. John Wiley & Sons Inc, 2011. PDF E-Book.

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 Appendices

Figure 1 Optical Modulator:

Figure 2 Three major types of solid-state optical modulators, a) Bulk, b) Integrated, c) All-fiber:

Figure 3 Bulk Electrooptic Phase Modulator:

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Figure 4 Electrooptic Intensity Modulator:

Figure 5 Bulk Acoustooptic Modulator:

Figure 6 Ellipsoid Visualization:

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