500 GHz plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator enabling sub-THz microwave photonics

By M. Burla, C. Hoessbacher, W. Heni, C. Haffner, Y. Fedoryshyn, D. Werner, Tatsuhiko Watanabe, H. Massler, D. Elder, Larry R. Dalton and 1 more. APL Photonics, 2018

277 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Broadband electro-optic intensity modulators are essential to convert electrical signals to the optical domain. The growing interest in THz wireless applications demands modulators with frequency responses to the sub-THz range, high power handling and very low nonlinear distortions, simultaneously. However, a modulator with all those characteristics has not been demonstrated to date. Here we experimentally demonstrate that plasmonic modulators do not trade off any performance parameter, featuring - at the same time - a short length of 10s of micrometers, record-high flat frequency response beyond 500 GHz, high power handling and high linearity, and we use them to create a sub-THz radio-over-fiber analog optical link. These devices have the potential to become a new tool in the general field of microwave photonics, making the sub-THz range accessible to e.g. 5G wireless communications, antenna remoting, IoT, sensing, and more.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/26776ba3d5edd19981492afbb1c5a63fbf5b289d

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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Roadmapping the next generation of silicon photonics (2023, background): “Polymer silicon-organic-hybrid (SOH) [67, 72] and plasmonic-organic-hybrid (POH) [69] require poling and hermetic sealing, creating significant challenges to making stable devices.”