DC drift activation energy of LiNbO3 optical modulators based on thousands of hours of active accelerated aging tests

Activation energy Ea in the drift of a separate dc bias port of x-cut LiNbO/sub 3/ (LN) optical modulators has been estimated based on thousands of hours of accelerated aging test data. The obtained drift curves show peaking and suggest an absence of catastrophically increasing bias voltages in these x-cut LN modulators. The Ea values calculated from the first positive drift slope, the time to peak and the succeeding negative drift slope were 1.39, 1.25, and 1.47 eV, respectively, suggesting Ea /spl sim/ 1.4 eV.