Litef Gmbh

Northrop Grumman Litef Gmbh

Alfons Newzella

Guenter Spahlinger

Sven Voigt

Günter Spahlinger

A digital phase modulator for a fiber-optic measurement device. A predetermined total number of electrodes of different lengths are arranged in parallel and on both sides of a light guidance path in or on an optical substrate. The electrodes are arranged in two or more triples along the light guidance path. In each case, two electrodes of successive length within a triple have the same length ratio with respect to one another. Such length ratio is chosen, in particular, to be &#x3bd;=1.618. The electrode lengths of this triple are chosen such that the smallest step widths of the output value range of the phase modulator can be formed by subtraction between the values of at least two larger electrodes. This allows the resolution of the phase modulator to be increased from 9 bits to 11 bits without change in chip size.

High-resolution digital phase modulator for a fiber-optic signal transmission or measurement device

A method and arrangement of electrodes for increasing the resolution of a digital phase modulator for a fiber-optic signal transmission or measuring device. A predetermined total number m of electrodes of different lengths are arranged parallel and on both sides with respect to a light guiding path in or on an optical substrate. The electrodes are divided into two groups. A first group n of electrodes represents a coarse modulator with binary and more significant weighted electrodes of length ratio b:b=2, the longest electrode of which corresponds to the sum of lengths of all the remaining electrodes of the overall modulator. A second, smaller group of nnon-binary and less significant weighted electrodes represents a fine modulator. The smallest output values are not formed by driving individual electrodes of the fine modulator, but rather by forming the difference, in each case, between two larger electrodes.

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Gundelfingen, Germany

Alfons Newzella