High Extinction-Ratio Integrated Mach–Zehnder Modulator With Active Y-Branch for Optical SSB Signal Generation

We propose a high extinction-ratio (ER) Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM) with an active Y-branch optical intensity trimmer. In addition, we investigate a high ER integrated MZM for optical single-sideband (SSB) signal generation, where the active Y-branch trimmers are embedded in a dual-parallel MZM. Optical SSB generation with high suppression ratio of main carrier (47 dB) and undesired sidebands (>42 dB) is achieved by optimizing the optical amplitude imbalances corresponding to the ER.