Coplanar Electrode Polymer Modulators Incorporating Fluorinated Polyimide Backbone Electro-Optic Polymer

Abstract

High-speed coherent optical communication has been expanding to handle the ever-increasing data traffic, and the large modulation bandwidth of electro-optic (EO) polymer modulators has been especially appreciated. However, to be useful in optical communication, the EO polymer device should address several issues, such as thermal stability, photo-oxidation, and bias drift. In this work, as a part of the experiments to address these challenges, an EO polymer with a fluorinated polyimide backbone is utilized to create EO polymer modulators with improved thermal stability. A coplanar electrode structure is introduced to enhance the poling efficiency and reduce the bias drift.

Recent progress in electro-optic polymer for ultra-fast communication

“…Moreover, side chain polymer system retain its degree of freedom which eventually can enhance the poling competency to that of host-guest system. Most commonly used polymers in this system includes, the Vinyl based NLO polymers (polystyrene and polymethyl methacrylate) and NLO polymeric materials having elevated T g such as, polyurethane, polyimide, polyamide, polyester, polyether, and polyquinoline [47][48][49][50][51][52]. Previously a substantial literature regarding various side-chain NLO polymer categories have been documented [53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63].…”