Design Optimization of Polymer Electro-Optic Modulators Using Inverted-Rib Optical Waveguide

Polymer electro-optic modulators are essential elemental components for opto-sensors and optical fiber communication system [1, 2, 3]. In this paper, we designed a low-loss polymer electro-optic modulator with an inverted-rib waveguide structure based on new fluorinated polyimides electro-optic materials, which has more advantages in the preparation and device performance parameters. Also we calculated the key modulator parameters, such as half wave voltage(V
_π
), characteristic impedance(Z
_m
), microwave equivalent refractive index(N
_m
), bandwidth(B
_w
), loss coefficient (α
_o
) in detail, according to different width, thickness and gap of electrode, then an optimized polymer electro-optic modulator structure with CPW electrode system was reported in theory. Finally, the simulation results show that the designed EOM has a low loss coefficient (α
_o
) of about 0.08 dB/cm/GHz
^0.5
with a high frequency of 10 GHz at 1.55 μm.