10.2 - Broadband, low drive-power electrooptic modulator

A compact optical intensity modulator has been constructed and tested which operates at 6328 Å and requires 60 mW of drive power per MHz of operating bandwidth. Intensity modulation of 100 percent was achieved with a transistorized driver delivering 6 watts over a 100-kHz to 10O-MHz bandwidth. The low drive-power performance is obtained by using a KD*P crystal modulator cell having a large length to cross-section ratio and laser beam condensing optics. This paper treats the design of the optical modulator and the results of tests performed over the 100-MHz bandwidth.