Electro-optic modulators device fabrication

Before we proceed with specific device designs and fabrication techniques, we need to review the electro-optic properties of nonlinear optical polymers and the physics of electro-optic modulation and directional coupling. 

The simple analysis presented above confirms that new formulations are required to produce stable, reliable products for field use. Practical system requirements, as defined by Mil Spec conformity and the use of standard fabrication and assembly processes, definitely require that a electro-optic polymer system with better thermal properties than thermoplastic acrylates be developed. That this is true for optical interconnection boards and modules is not surprising because of their complexity. It is perhaps remarkable that it remains true for even simple devices, such as a packaged, pigtailed traveling-wave modulator. The ultimate success of electro-optic polymers will be their use in cost-effective products that are used by systems designers. 

In 1991, the first Pl-based guest-host electro-optical (EO) systems were described [216,217] and the example of fabrication of an all-PI Mach-Zehnder modulator of a vertical triple-stack with the cladding PI-EO-core Pl-cladding PI sandwiched between electrodes using a commercial laser dye DCM [4-(dicyano-methylene)-2-methyl-6-(p-dimethylaminostyryl)-4H pyran] is given in a monograph [215] in order to show the development pathway of a prototype device in the use of polyimides for EO devices. 

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