Nonlinear behavior of traveling-wave electroabsorption modulators

Abstract

We reported the nonlinear properties of transfer curves of multiple quantum well (MQW) traveling-wave electroabsorption modulators (TW-EAMs) in analog optical link applications. A new method to extract the optical absorption coefficient of TW-EAMs was developed. By using the method, we investigated the dependence of the transfer curvs on both the input optical power and the bias voltage. The relationships between the RF output power and bias voltage as well as RF input power were studied experimentally and theoretically. A SFDR as high as 128 dB-Hz4/5 was successfully obtained by adjusting the bias level as well as optical input power at 10.0 GHz.