Modulation Linearity Characterization of Si Mach-Zehnder Modulators

Linearity of Si Mach-Zehnder Modulators (MZM) is characterized with a newly-proposed modeling technique which includes the influences of the transmission characteristics of traveling-wave (TW) electrodes and the electro-optic (EO) characteristics of PN junction phase shifters within Si MZMs. Using the technique, the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) and the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of a sample Si MZM device are determined, and their accuracy is verified with measurement results. In addition, the contributions of different nonlinear parameters to the nonlinearity of the sample Si MZM are identified.