Side-chain electro-optic polymer modulator with wide thermal stability ranging from -46 °C to 95 °C for fiber-optic gyroscope applications -: art. no. 061112

Electro-optic (EO) polymer modulators with a wide range of thermal stability from -46 degrees C to 95 degrees C for fiber-optic gyroscope applications are reported. The synthesized EO side-chain polymer used has a glass transient temperature (T-g) of 200 degrees C and a large EO coefficient of 25.2 pm/V in a real device measurement. Mach-Zehnder (MZ) intensity and optical phase modulators are implemented based on this high-T-g side-chain EO polymer, exhibiting similar to 3.75 V half-wave voltage with 1.5 cm interaction length and 2.3 cm total length at 1.55 mu m wavelength. The optical fiber-to-lens insertion loss is similar to 7.5 dB in the MZ interferometers and similar to 6 dB in the straight waveguides. We examine the long-term thermal stability of these devices and demonstrate their ability to meet the strict requirements of various EO device applications, particularly fiber-optic gyroscopes. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.