Long lifetime projections for annealed proton-exchanged waveguide devices

The lifetime of annealed proton-exchanged (APE) waveguide devices has been studied using accelerated aging. Y-fed Balanced-Bridge Modulator (YBBM) devices were aged at elevated temperatures and characterized as a function of aging time. The measured activation energy of 1.3 eV indicates that hydrogen diffusion is the dominant degradation mechanism. Insertion loss, modulator half wave voltage, and y-branch split ratio are found to be insensitive to aging. Extrapolations indicate that degradation of the YBBM device is negligible at temperatures of 95/spl deg/C or below and an operating/storage temperature as high as 125/spl deg/C can be sustained for 13 yr with little effect.<
>