High linear ring-assisted MZI electro-optic silicon modulators suitable for radio-over-fiber applications

The linearity properties of ring-assisted MZI (RAMZI) electro-optic silicon modulators are investigated. When quadrature biased the RAMZI silicon modulator with V
_bias,DC
=1 V and applied a 1 GHz RF tone frequency, it is obtained a Spurious-Free Dynamic Range (SFDR) of 71.65 dB·Hz
^2/3
, and an input intercept point IIP3=67 dBm. Measurements on QPSK and 16-QAM electrical modulated signals on a 1 GHz carrier also show an experimental error vector magnitude (EVM) lower than 10% and 14% for 20 Msymbol/s and 50 Msymbol/s modulation rates respectively, which corroborates their potential for RoF applications.