Linearized Ring-Assisted Electrooptical Modulator for Coherent Optical OFDM Links

We present a design for a ring-assisted optical amplitude modulator based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with microring resonators coupled to each arm and characterized by improved linearity and dynamic range. We analyze the performance of the proposed device in a coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division-multiplexing system and show that it reduces the bit-error rate compared to conventional modulators.