IEICE Transactions on Electronics
Online ISSN : 1745-1353
Print ISSN : 0916-8524
Special Section on Opto-electronics and Communications for Future Optical Network
Highly Reliable and Compact InP-Based In-Phase and Quadrature Modulators for Over 400 Gbit/s Coherent Transmission Systems
Hajime TANAKATsutomu ISHIKAWATakashi KITAMURAMasataka WATANABERyuji YAMABIRyo YAMAGUCHINaoya KONOTakehiko KIKUCHIMorihiro SEKITomokazu KATSUYAMAMitsuru EKAWAHajime SHOJI
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2020 Volume E103.C Issue 11 Pages 661-668

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Abstract

We fabricated an InP-based dual-polarization In-phase and Quadrature (DP-IQ) modulator consisting of a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator array integrated with RF termination resistors and backside via holes for high-bandwidth coherent driver modulators and revealed its high reliability. These integrations allowed the chip size (Chip size: 4.4mm×3mm) to be reduced by 59% compared with the previous chip without these integrations, that is, the previous chip needed 8 chip-resistors for terminating RF signals and 12 RF electrode pads for the electrical connection with these resistors in a Signal-Ground-Signal configuration. This MZ modulator exhibited a 3-dB bandwidth of around 40 GHz as its electrical/optical response, which is sufficient for over 400 Gbit/s coherent transmission systems using 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and 64QAM signals. Also, we investigated a rapid degradation which affects the reliability of InP-based DP-IQ modulators. This rapid degradation we called optical damage is caused by strong incident light power and a high reverse bias voltage condition at the entrance of an electrode in each arm of the MZ modulators. This rapid degradation makes it difficult to estimate the lifetime of the chip using an accelerated aging test, because the value of the breakdown voltage which induces optical damage varies considerably depending on conditions, such as light power, operation wavelength, and chip temperature. Therefore, we opted for the step stress test method to investigate the lifetime of the chip. As a result, we confirmed that optical damage occurred when photo-current density at the entrance of an electrode exceeded threshold current density and demonstrated that InP-based modulators did not degrade unless operation conditions reached threshold current density. This threshold current density was independent of incident light power, operation wavelength and chip temperature.

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© 2020 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers
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