Reciprocal phase transition-enabled electro-optic modulation
Abstract
Electro-optic (EO) modulation is a well-known and essential topic in the field of communications and sensing. Its ultrahigh efficiency is unprecedentedly desired in the current green and data era. However, dramatically increasing the modulation efficiency is difficult due to the monotonic mapping relationship between the electrical signal and modulated optical signal. Here, a new mechanism termed phase-transition EO modulation is revealed from the reciprocal transition between two distinct phase planes arising from the bifurcation. Remarkably, a monolithically integrated mode-locked laser (MLL) is implemented as a prototype. A 24.8-GHz radio-frequency signal is generated and modulated, achieving a modulation energy efficiency of 3.06 fJ/bit improved by about four orders of magnitude and a contrast ratio exceeding 50 dB. Thus, MLL-based phase-transition EO modulation is characterised by ultrahigh modulation efficiency and ultrahigh contrast ratio, as experimentally proved in radio-over-fibre and underwater acoustic-sensing systems. This phase-transition EO modulation opens a new avenue for green communication and ubiquitous connections.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2203.14823,
title = {Reciprocal phase transition-enabled electro-optic modulation},
author = {Fang Zou and Lei Zou and Ye Tian and Yiming Zhang and Erwin Bente and Weigang Hou and Yu Liu and Siming Chen and Victoria Cao and Lei Guo and Songsui Li and Lianshan Yan and Wei Pan and Dusan Milosevic and Zizheng Cao and A. M. J. Koonen and Huiyun Liu and Xihua Zou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.14823},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
27 pages, 14 figures