Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Yoshihiro Ogiso

Josuke Ozaki

Nobuhiro Kikuchi

Yuta Ueda

Yasuaki Hashizume

Hiromasa Tanobe

Eiichi Yamada

Mitsuteru Ishikawa

Norihide Kashio

Shigeru Kanazawa

Shogo Yamanaka

Shinsuke Nakano

Nobuhiro Nunoya

Hiroyasu Mawatari

Masaki Kohtoku

A semiconductor optical modulator in which a radio frequency (RF) line which is disposed parallel to an optical waveguide and is a differential configuration for transmitting an RF modulation signal, a connecting pad which is formed in the same direction continuously with the RF line, and a termination resistor which has two rectangular resistors for differentially terminating the RF modulation signal from the connecting pad are linearly disposed, and terminated on-chip, and the RF line which forms a differential pair immediately after passing through the termination resistor is short-circuited.

Semiconductor optical modulator

Provided is a high-speed optical transmission-reception apparatus including a digital-signal processing circuit and optical modulation and optical reception modules, in which a flexible printed circuit is used as a high-frequency interface for the optical modulation and optical reception modules, a mechanism for connecting the high-frequency line pattern to the flexible printed circuit is provided on a package substrate of the digital-signal processing circuit, and the package substrate and the optical modulation and optical reception modules are connected by the flexible printed circuit.

High-speed optical transceiver

A semiconductor Mach-Zehnder optical modulator includes input-side lead-out lines, phase modulation electrode lines, and electrodes that apply modulation signals propagating through the phase modulation electrode lines to waveguides, respectively. The semiconductor Mach-Zehnder optical modulator further includes a conductive layer between a substrate and the waveguides, a plurality of first wiring layers connected to the conductive layer, and a second wiring layer that connects an electrode pad and the plurality of first wiring layers.

Semiconductor Mach-Zehnder optical modulator and IQ modulator

Phase modulation electrode lines of a semiconductor Mach-Zehnder optical modulator are formed along waveguides. Output-side lead lines are bent in a direction crossing the extending direction of the waveguides in the plane of a dielectric layer and are connected to terminal resistors. The output-side lead lines are formed in a predetermined width corresponding to a desired impedance and make the width narrower than the predetermined width only in the bent portions and portions where the output-side lead lines crosses the waveguides.

Provided is an IQ optical modulator including a nest-type MZ optical waveguide having optical modulation regions of I channel and Q channel End portions of an input optical waveguide and an output optical waveguide of the IQ optical modulator are located on a same edge face of a chip of the IQ optical modulator, an optical cross waveguide is included in which an optical waveguide between a first optical combiner and a second optical combiner of the nest-type MZ optical waveguide and the input optical waveguide cross each other, a first optical divider is provided between the I-channel optical modulation region and the Q-channel optical modulation region, and a light propagation direction in the first optical divider and a light propagation direction in the optical modulation regions are opposite to each other.

IQ optical modulator

In the adjustment method of optical coupling for an optical integrated circuit according to the present disclosure, the optimal adjustment position of optical coupling is determined on the basis of, for example, a sum of a plurality of photocurrents at electrodes on arm waveguides respectively formed on the plurality of MZIs in the polarization-multiplexing IQ modulator. According to the maximum value of the sum of the plurality of photocurrents, the light condensing spot position is adjusted to the center position of the end face core of the optical waveguide of the integrated chip. Typically, the light condensing spot position is adjusted to the center of the end face core by displacing the two input lenses.

Optical coupling method

Provided is an optical modulator having an optical modulation high frequency line through which a high frequency electrical signal can be efficiently input to an optical modulation region and which is in a broadband. High frequency lines of an optical modulator, that is, an input high frequency line, an optical modulation high frequency line, and an output high frequency line have a line configuration in which each of the input high frequency line and the output high frequency line is divided into a plurality of segments, and adjacent segments of the plurality of the segments have different characteristic impedances and propagation constants. The input high frequency line and the output high frequency line may be implemented by changing a width or a thickness of a signal electrode formed on a dielectric forming a micro-strip line between adjacent segments. The characteristic impedances and the propagation constants may be changed by changing a dielectric constant of the dielectric instead of changing the width or the thickness of the signal electrode.

Optical modulator

A Mach-Zehnder modulator is enabled to perform high-speed modulation operation by reducing RF loss of a high-frequency wiring formed on an optical waveguide without deteriorating optical characteristics of branching and multiplexing optical circuits. The Mach-Zehnder modulator includes a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) optical waveguide including two arm waveguides, a 1&#xd7;2 multimode interference coupler composed of a semiconductor that splits and distributes input light to the two arm waveguides, a 2&#xd7;1 multimode interference coupler composed of a semiconductor that multiplexes light from the two arm waveguides, and phase modulation means for giving a phase difference to the light that propagates through the two arm waveguides, wherein the 1&#xd7;2 multimode interference coupler and the 2&#xd7;1 multimode interference coupler are formed in a high-mesa structure, and higher mode light radiation means for radiating higher mode light is connected to only the 2&#xd7;1 multimode interference coupler among the two multimode interference couplers.

Semiconductor Mach-Zehnder optical modulator and IQ optical modulator using same

The present invention provides a highly reliable, high-speed, and low-loss semiconductor optical modulation element that protects a pin junction structure in a modulation region against reverse voltage ESD by configuring an additional capacity having a thyristor structure between a plurality of feeding pad electrodes. An n-type contact layer, an n-type cladding layer, a non-doped core/cladding layer, a p-type cladding layer, and a p-type contact layer are sequentially laminated on the substrate surface. A Mach-Zehnder interferometric waveguide and a plurality of feeding pad installation sections are formed by dry etching. The n-type contact layer and the n-type cladding layer are removed except for a modulation region of the Mach-Zehnder interferometric waveguide and a feeding region in which the feeding pad installation sections are formed so that the modulation region and the semiconductor of the lower part of the feeding region are electrically isolated from each other. The feeding pads are formed on the common n-type contact layer and n-type cladding layer. A thyristor structure of a pinip junction is formed between the feeding pads.

Semiconductor optical modulation element

A semiconductor MZM of the present invention includes the first and second signal electrodes formed to be parallel to the first and second arm waveguides, respectively; the first and second phase modulation electrodes that are branched from the first and second signal electrodes and that are provided on the first and second arm waveguides in a discrete manner along the first and second signal electrodes; the first and second ground electrodes formed parallelly along the first and second signal electrodes; and a plurality of connection wirings to connect the first and second ground electrodes between a plurality of points. A differential signal is inputted to or outputted from the first and second signal electrodes. The plurality of connection wirings adjacent to each other are arranged with an interval &#xbc; times smaller than wavelength of a signal propagated through the first and second signal electrodes.

Semiconductor Mach-Zehnder modulator

An IQ optical modulator including: a parent Mach-Zehnder type (MZM) optical waveguide; child MZM optical waveguides constituting two arms of the parent MZM; two electrode transmission lines provided along the two arms of the child MZM, respectively, and receiving modulation signal to phase-modulate an optical signal; an RF extension line connected to the two electrode transmission lines, respectively; a first optical splitter branching light into the two arms of the parent MZM; a second optical splitter branching light into the two arms of the child MZM; and a first optical multiplexer multiplexing light from the two arms of the child MZM, wherein stripe direction of the child MZM optical waveguide is same as the RF extension line, the second optical splitter, and the first optical multiplexer, and is orthogonal to the first optical splitter.

This invention provides a high-frequency line adopting a structure to suppress an impedance variation and occurrence of an excessive power loss in high-frequency wiring having intersection with an optical waveguide. A high-frequency line is a microstrip line which has a basic configuration of stacking a ground electrode, a dielectric layer, and a signal electrode in this order on a SI-InP substrate. In addition, as shown in a transverse sectional view, an optical waveguide core made of InP-based semiconductor intersects with the high-frequency line in a crossing manner. A width of the signal electrode is partially increased in a certain region covering the intersection with the optical waveguide along a propagating direction of the high-frequency line. In the microstrip line, the width of the signal electrode is partially increased from wto w, and characteristic impedance is thus reduced as compared to one with the uniform width w.

High-frequency line

To provide a Mach-Zehnder (MZ) type semiconductor optical modulation element that can be used as a modulator, which is ultrafast and excellent in electrical stability. A semiconductor optical modulation element of a Mach-Zehnder type that performs modulation of light using a refractive index modulation region where a refractive index of the light guided to an optical waveguide is modulated and an input and output region where multiplexing/demultiplexing of the light split in the refractive index modulation region is performed, characterized in that in the refractive index modulation region of the optical waveguide, an n-type clad layer, an i core layer, and a p-type clad layer are stacked in the order from a top layer on a substrate surface equivalent to a (100) plane of a sphalerite-type seminsulating semiconductor crystal substrate, the n-type clad layer is formed in a ridge shape in an inverted mesa direction, and a capacitancl-oaded electrode is provided on the n-type clad layer.

Growing community of inventors

Atsugi, Japan

Yoshihiro Ogiso