Abstract
A bias-independent inter-modulation method is proposed and demonstrated for measuring low-frequency modulation and bias half-wave voltages of Mach-Zehnder modulators (MZMs). The method consists of simultaneous sinusoidal modulation on the modulation and bias ports of the MZM under test. Sinusoidal-modulated sidebands heterodyne with each other and generate the desired inter-modulation products after photodetection, which allows extracting both the modulation depth and half-wave voltage for the modulation and bias ports of the MZM. Our method is independent of bias voltages of the MZM, which can be canceled out by carefully choosing the sinusoidal-modulation frequencies. Moreover, the proposed method enables the low swing voltage for measuring both the modulation depth and half-wave voltage of MZMs. Experiments indicate that the proposed method features the simple setup and high accuracy for low-frequency response measurement ranging from 1 Hz to 1 MHz.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
T. Ichikawa, M. Kagami, O. Watanabe, M. Tsuchimori, and H. Ito, “Very-low-frequency response of a nonlinear urethane-urea copolymer optical modulator,” Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, 2002, 41(3A): L243–L245.
M. Q. Ren, P. Lu, L. Chen, and X. Y. Bao, “Study of Φ-OTDR stability for dynamic strain measurement in piezoelectric vibration,” Photonic Sensors, 2016, 6(3): 199–208.
A. L. Ricchiuti, D. Barrera, S. Sales, L. Thevenaz, and J. Capmany, “Long fiber Bragg grating sensor interrogation using discrete-time microwave photonic filtering techniques,” Optics Express, 2012, 21(23): 28175–28181.
W. Sun, X. Y. Liu, and M. Deng, “High-precision magnetic field sensor based on fiber Bragg grating and dual-loop optoelectronic oscillator,” Photonic Sensors, 2022, 12(4): 220419.
W. Wang, J. L. Xia, and Y. X. Xu, “Research on integrated optical gyroscope,” in 2008 2nd International Symposium on Systems and Control in Aerospace and Astronautics (ISSCAA). IEEE, China, 2008, pp. 4776343.
D. N. Liu, H. Li, X. Wang, H. L. Liu, P. R. Ni, N. Liu, and L. S. Feng, “Interferometric optical gyroscope based on an integrated silica waveguide coil with low loss,” Optics Express, 2020, 28(10): 15718–15730.
P. P. Khial, A. D. White, and A. Hajimiri, “Nanophotonic optical gyroscope with reciprocal sensitivity enhancement,” Nature Photonics, 2018, 12: 671–675.
S. Aisawa, H. Miyao, N. Takachio, and S. Kuwano, “DC drift compensation method using low frequency perturbation for LiNbO3 intensity modulator,” in Technical Digest CLEO/Pacific Rim’ 97 Pacific Rim Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, IEEE, Japan, 1998, pp. 123–124.
Y. P. Li, Y. A. Zhang, and Y. Q. Huang, “Any bias point control technique for Mach-Zehnder modulator,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letter, 2013, 25(24): 2412–2415.
Z. Y. Pan, S. F. Liu, N. Zhu, P. Li, M. Z. Liu, L. Yang, et al., “Arbitrary bias point control for Mach-Zehnder modulator using a linear-frequency modulated signal,” IEEE Photonics Technology Letter, 2021, 33(11): 577–580.
P. Cross, R. Baumgarner, and B. Kolner, “Microwave integrated optical modulator,” Applied Physics Letters, 1984, 44(5): 486–488.
R. A. Becker, “Traveling wave electro optic modulator with maximum bandwidth length product,” Applied Physics Letters, 1984, 45(11): 1168–1170.
S. Sun, M. He, M. Xu, S. Gao, Z. Chen, X. Zhang, et al., “Bias-drift-free Mach-Zehnder modulators based on a heterogeneous silicon and lithium niobate platform,” Photonics Research, 2020, 8(12): 1958–1963.
S. G. Uehara, “Calibration of optical modulator frequency response with application to signal level control,” Applied Optics, 1978, 17(1): 68–71.
P. D. Hale and D. F. Williams, “Calibrated measurement of optoelectronic frequency response,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 1993, 51(4): 1422–1429.
X. M. Wu, J. W. Man, L. Xie, J. G. Liu, Y. Liu, and N. H. Zhu, “A new method for measuring the frequency response of broadband optoelectronic devices,” IEEE Photonics Journal, 2012, 4(5): 1679–1685.
K. Toki, M. Yoshikawa, D. Uesaka, H. Toda, H. Iwata, T. Kawanishi, et al., “Frequency response measurement of half-wave voltage and chirp parameter of LiNbO3 intensity modulators in low frequency range,” in 2011 International Topical Meeting on Microwave Photonics jointly held with the 2011 Asia-Pacific Microwave Photonics Conference (MWP/APMP), Japan, 2011, pp. 354–356.
S. J. Zhang, C. Zhang, H. Wang, X. H. Zou, Y. Liu, and J. E. Bowers, “Calibration-free measurement of high-speed Mach-Zehnder modulator based on low-frequency detection,” Optics Letters, 2016, 41(3): 460–463.
M. Yoshioka, S. Sato, and T. Kikuchi, “A method for measuring the frequency response of photodetector modules using twice-modulated light,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2005, 23(6): 2112–2117.
R. L. Jungerman and C. A. Flory, “Low-frequency acoustic anomalies in lithium niobate Mach-Zehnder interferometers,” Applied Physics Letters, 1988, 53(16): 1477–1479.
S. J. Zhang, C. Zhang, H. Wang, Y. Liu, J. D. Peters, and J. E. Bowers, “On-wafer probing-kit for RF characterization of silicon photonic integrated transceivers,” Optics Express, 2017, 25(12): 13340–13350.
S. J. Zhang, C. Zhang, H. Wang, X. H. Zou, Y. L. Zhang, Y. Liu, et al., “Self-calibrated microwave characterization of high-speed optoelectronic devices by heterodyne spectrum mapping,” Journal of Lightwave Technology, 2017, 35(10): 1952–1961.
Y. Xu, S. J. Zhang, X. H. Zou, Z. T. Ruan, Y. T. He, H. P. Li, et al., “Characterization of high-speed electro-optic phase modulators based on heterodyne carrier mapping at a fixed low-frequency,” Optics Express, 2023, 31(2): 1656–1665.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61927821); National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFE0201900); Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. ZYGX2019Z011).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhu, J., Zou, X., Xu, Y. et al. Bias-Independent Inter-Modulation Method for Simultaneously Measuring Low-Frequency Modulation and Bias Half-Wave Voltages of Mach-Zehnder Modulators. Photonic Sens 13, 230203 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13320-023-0678-9
Received:
Revised:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13320-023-0678-9