Monolithic GaAs Electro-Optic IQ Modulator Demonstrated at 150 Gbit/s With 64QAM

Author

Schindler, Philipp C. ; Korn, D. ; Stamatiadis, Christos ; O´Keefe, M.F. ; Stampoulidis, L. ; Schmogrow, R. ; Zakynthinos, P. ; Palmer, R. ; Cameron, N. ; Zhou, Yangzhong ; Walker, R.G. ; Kehayas, Efstratios ; Ben-Ezra, S. ; Tomkos, Ioannis ; Zimmermann,

Author_Institution

Inst. of Photonics & Quantum Electron., Karlsruhe Inst. of Technol., Karlsruhe, Germany

Volume

32

Issue

4

fYear

2014

fDate

Feb.15, 2014

Firstpage

760

Lastpage

765

Abstract

We report on the experimental demonstration of a GaAs IQ modulator. The device consists of two “nested” Mach-Zehnder modulators for the inphase and quadrature component and is operated at a symbol rate of 25 GBd. Using QPSK, 16QAM, 32QAM and 64QAM, data rates of up to 150 Gbit/s were encoded on a single carrier in one polarization. The individual Mach-Zehnder modulators, and hence, the IQ-modulator have an electro-optic 3 dB bandwidth of 27 GHz and a 6 dB bandwidth larger than 35 GHz. The extinction ratio of the Mach-Zehnder exceeds 20 dB. The devices exhibit small footprint of 2 mm × 40 mm and can be integrated on large-area GaAs wafers using high-yield fabrication processes while providing performance similar to established lithium niobate devices.

Keywords

electro-optical modulation; gallium arsenide; lithium compounds; quadrature amplitude modulation; quadrature phase shift keying; GaAs; LiNbO₃; Mach-Zehnder modulators; QAM; QPSK; bit rate 150 Gbit/s; lithium niobate devices; monolithic electro-optic IQ modulator; quadrature component; symbol rate; Bit error rate; Chirp; Gallium arsenide; High-speed optical techniques; Optical modulation; Phase shift keying; Advanced modulation formats; GaAs; IQ-modulator;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2013.2278381

Filename

6578574