Tuesday 19 June 2012

Electro-optic modulator


Electro-optic modulator (EOM) is an optical device in which a signal-controlled element displaying electro-optic effect is used to modulate a beam of light. The modulation may be imposed on the phase, frequency, amplitude, or polarization of the modulated beam. Modulation bandwidths extending into the gigahertz range are possible with the use of laser-controlled modulators.
Generally a nonlinear optical material (organic polymers have the fastest response rates, and thus are best for this application) with an incident static or low frequency optical field will see a modulation of its refractive index.
Certain materials change their optical properties when subjected to an electric field. This is caused by forces that distort the positions, orientations, or shape of the molecules constituting the material. The electro-optic effect is the change in the refractive index resulting from applications of a dc or low-frequency electric field.

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[edit]Types of EOMs

[edit]Phase modulation

The simplest kind of EOM consists of a crystal, such as Lithium niobate, whose refractive index is a function of the strength of the localelectric field. That means that if lithium niobate is exposed to an electric field, light will travel more slowly through it. But the phase of the light leaving the crystal is directly proportional to the length of time it took that light to pass through it. Therefore, the phase of the laser light exiting an EOM can be controlled by changing the electric field in the crystal.
Note that the electric field can be created by placing a parallel plate capacitor across the crystal. Since the field inside a parallel plate capacitor depends linearly on the potential, the index of refraction depends linearly on the field (for crystals where Pockels effectdominates), and the phase depends linearly on the index of refraction, the phase modulation must depend linearly on the potential applied to the EOM.
The voltage required for inducing a phase change of π is called the half-wave voltage (Vπ). For a Pockels cell, it is usually hundreds or even thousands of volts, so that a high-voltage amplifier is required. Suitable electronic circuits can switch such large voltages within a few nanoseconds, allowing the use of EOMs as fast optical switches.
Liquid crystal devices are electro-optical phase modulators if no polarizers are used.

[edit]Amplitude modulation

A phase modulating EOM can also be used as an amplitude modulator by using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. A beam splitter divides the laser light into two paths, one of which has a phase modulator as described above. The beams are then recombined. Changing the electric field on the phase modulating path will then determine whether the two beams interfere constructively or destructively at the output, and thereby control the amplitude or intensity of the exiting light. This device is called a Mach-Zehnder modulator.
A very common application of EOMs is for creating sidebands in a monochromatic laser beam. To see how this works, first imagine that the strength of a laser beam with frequency \omega entering the EOM is given by
Ae^{i\omega t}.
Now suppose we apply a sinusoidally varying potential voltage to the EOM with frequency \Omega and small amplitude \beta. This adds a time dependent phase to the above expression,
Ae^{i\omega t + i\beta\sin(\Omega t)}.
Since \beta is small, we can use the Taylor expansion for the exponential
Ae^{i\omega t}\left( 1+i\beta\sin(\Omega t)\right) ,
to which we apply a simple identity for sine,
Ae^{i\omega t}\left( 1+\frac{\beta}{2}(e^{i\Omega t} - e^{-i\Omega t})\right) = A\left( e^{i\omega t}+\frac{\beta}{2}e^{i(\omega+\Omega) t}-\frac{\beta}{2}e^{i(\omega-\Omega) t}\right) .
This expression we interpret to mean that we have the original carrier frequency plus two small sidebands, one at \omega+\Omega and another at \omega-\Omega. Notice however that we only used the first term in the Taylor expansion - in truth there are an infinite number of sidebands. There is a useful identity involving Bessel functions
Ae^{i\omega t + i\beta\sin(\Omega t)} = Ae^{i\omega t}\left( J_0(\beta) + \sum_{k=1}^{\infty}J_k(\beta)e^{ik\Omega t} + \sum_{k=1}^{\infty}(-1)^k J_k(\beta)e^{-ik\Omega t}\right) ,
which gives the amplitudes of all the sidebands. Notice that if one modulates the amplitude instead of the phase, one gets only the first set of sidebands,
\left( 1 + \beta\sin(\Omega t)\right) Ae^{i\omega t} = Ae^{i\omega t} + \frac{A\beta}{2i}\left( e^{i(\omega+\Omega) t} - e^{i(\omega-\Omega)t} \right) .

[edit]Polarization modulation

Depending on the type and orientation of the nonlinear crystal, and on the direction of the applied electric field, the phase delay can depend on the polarization direction. A Pockels cell can thus be seen as a voltage-controlled waveplate, and it can be used for modulating the polarization state. For a linear input polarization (often oriented at 45° to the crystal axes), the output polarization will in general be elliptical, rather than simply a linear polarization state with a rotated direction.
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