High field poling of electrooptic etalon modulators on CMOS integrated circuits

Reflection etalon modulators with electrooptic polymer layers as the spacer have been fabricated on the surface of a CMOS chip and successfully poled under a dc electric field at 80 V/μm. This is the first demonstration that such etalons can be fabricated on finished VLSI circuits and poled successfully without damage to the electronics while connected to the underlying circuitry. Such modulators, fabricated on the surface of integrated circuits, have potential applications in areas such as optical communication and free-space interconnects for multiprocessors.