Study on Characteristics of Mach-Zehnder Electro-Optical Modulator

Abstract

This paper propose electric-optical modulator model and establish a simulation link. Combined with the simulation link at 25 Gbps transmission rate, the extinction ratio(ER), optical modulation amplitude(OMA) and bit error rate(BER) of the modulator are studied when the arm length of the modulator is between 1mm and 3mm, and the peak-to-peak voltage (VPP) of the input electrical signal is 2-3v, and the input optical power varies from 5 to10mw. The result are as follow : In order to obtain a larger extinction ratio, it tends to increase the length of both arms of the modulator or the VPP of the input electrical signal when other condition are the same, but the ER is insensitive to changes in input optical intensity; When the length of the modulation arm is changed from 1 to 3mm, the OMA increases first and then decreases, and the BER changes inversely. Therefore, the maximum OMA and the lowest BER can be obtained by optimizing the arm length of the modulator; the BER of the modulator decreases as the input optical intensity and the VPP increases.