Conductivity-dependency-free in-plane poling for Mach-Zehnder modulator with highly conductive electro-optic polymer

This letter presents the in-plane poling in electro-optic (EO) polymer modulators with conductivity dependency of core and claddings eliminated. A Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator with a highly conductive EO polymer, AJLS102/APC, is realized and poled by the in-plane coplanar waveguide poling electrode. V pi of 7.7 V in a single-arm poled MZ (3.8 V for push-pull operation) is achieved and the evaluated r(33) is 65 pm/V. Combined with the r(33)'s of the previously measured single layers and MZ modulators using two other EO polymers, this experiment proves that the r(33) proportional to the single layer r(33) can be achieved in an in-plane MZ device regardless of the material conductivities. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.