Low-Vπ high-thermal-stability electro-optic polymer waveguide modulators using the full potenetial of high-μβ chromophores with a DC bias voltage

The full potential of second order nonlinear polymers can be utilized in electro-optic polymer modulators with a DC biased operation scheme to greatly reduce the V(pi ). This technique makes use of the total achievable electro-optic coefficient, which can be more than three times as high as the residual value after the fast partial relaxation following corona or contact poling. As the result of the DC bias and with high (mu) (beta) chromophores, a low V(pi ) of 1.5 V was achieved with 2 cm long birefringent waveguide modulators at the wavelength of 1.3 micrometer. Results of 200 degrees Celsius stability experiment indicate that this scheme also enables electro-optic polymer devices to meet the stability required for high temperature hermetic sealing because the polymer does not need to be poled before device packaging.