Phys.org August 23, 2023 Digitalizing optical signals through electric driving signals, electro-optic modulators (EOMs) are one of the cardinal elements in modern optical communications. Most of current EOM devices are targeting on-chip integrations, which routinely suffer from high coupling losses, complex optical alignments, and single-band operations. Researchers in China integrated a lumped EOM device on the end faces of a single-mode optical fiber jumper for fast amplitude modulations. Taking advantage of the ultrathin and high quality-factor plasmonic metasurfaces, nanofabrication-friendly and highly efficient EO polymers and coupling-free connections with fiber networks, the EOM was demonstrated to allow dual-band operations and high-speed […]
Tag Archives: Electro-optic modulators
High-speed, efficient, and compact electro-optic modulators for free space
Science Daily June 7, 2022 Modulators based on metasurface architectures that modulate free-space light at gigahertz (GHz) speeds can boost flat optics technology by microwave electronics for active optics, diffractive computing, or optoelectronic control. An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, University of Washington, Switzerland) has demonstrated a modulator that consists of a thin layer of an organic electro-optic material deposited on top of a metasurface etched with sub-wavelength resonators integrated with microwave electronics. When a microwave field is applied to the electro-optical material, its refractive index changes, changing the intensity of light that is being transmitted by […]