Title: Design, Fabrication, and Testing of Silicon Photonic MZI-Based Polymer Electro-Optic Modulators
Author: Timothy Nguyen
Abstract: Polymer electro-optic (EO) modulators were designed, fabricated, and tested to extract key figures of merit, namely the half-wave voltage Vπ that is required to shift the response at the operating wavelength from maximum to minimum transmission. The devices were designed to minimize Vπ in layout by employing a push-pull configuration and minimizing the separation between the metal electrodes used for poling and modulation. Unique fabrication steps included patterning using electron-beam lithography, physical vapour deposition of the metal layer using a custom-built electron-beam evaporator, and poling of the EO material. A successfully-fabricated modulator with modulation length L = 3 mm exhibited Vπ = 6.569 V and VπL = 19.707 Vmm.