Study of an Electro-Optic Polymer Modulator

In order to characterize electro-optic polymer modulators, a full-vectorial finite-difference mode solver has been developed to solve Maxwell\´s equation for an optical waveguide, and a finite-element method has been employed to analyze a microwave electrode. A systematic and detailed discussion has been presented to describe and design a modulator about performance parameters: $V_{\pi}L,\Delta fL, N_{m}, \alpha _{c}$ , and $z_{c}$ with all the necessary design parameters: optical waveguide (width and height), electrode (width and height), and thickness of cladding layer. We can see that most of the results are interesting, even very different from general opinions, for example, one can observe that $V_{\pi}L$ is not always reduced with an increased width of optical waveguide. These will be helpful for an optimized design of a modulator.