IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. XX, NO.
Y, MAY 2002 101
High-Speed Optical Modulators
Carsten Langrock, David S. Hum, Eleni Diamanti, Mathieu Charbonneau-Lefort
Abstract— In this article, we present experimental results
pertaining to modulation of a multimode cw helium-neon
laser using novel high-speed phase and amplitude modula-
tors. The theory behind these modulation schemes will be
described in detail and experimental results will exhibit
good agreement with theoretical predictions. Possible im-
provements of the experimental setup will be pointed out
in the last part of this article.
Keywords— EOM, AOM, Modulator, Phase, Amplitude.
I. Introduction
T HE wish to transmit information over long distances
is as old as mankind itself. For thousands of years,
various schemes of “signal modulation”, as we would call
it today, have been invented and successfully used. Before
the advent of fire, sound was used as the carrier medium.
With the discovery of fire and the fact that shiny surfaces
are capable of reflecting the sunlight, communication over
long distances experienced a sudden boost.
Even to our ancient predecessors it was clear that one
cannot convey any kind of information by a continuously
lit fire. Modulation of the carrier medium was known
to be the pertinent part of communication long before
modern communication theory was born. Abstraction
of information for communication purposes is therefore
a very old technology. Over the last thousand years
nothing much changed, except for the choice of carrier
medium, modulation scheme, and alphabet. Even these
things didn’t change all that much. We are still using
light as the carrier and amplitude modulation schemes in
many cases. Our alphabet evolved quite a bit to assure
fast and error-free transmission of information.
Shortly after the invention of the laser, it was obvious
that this light source would revolutionize communication
due to its unique properties. Optical light modulators
had to be invented to take advantage of the enormous
theoretical bandwidth that a carrier at optical frequencies
provides. If there was doubt whether lasers would be
used for communication purposes, this doubt would have
been washed away with the advent of optical fibers. The
fortunate coincidence between having a low-loss medium
and solid state laser diodes operating within this low-
loss regime changed communication as we knew it for
good. It became clear that optical fibers were capable
of supporting larger bandwidths than modulators were
capable of imposing onto the optical carrier.
Even though laser diodes can be modulated directly,
this modulation scheme has some disadvantages regard-
ing frequency stability and diode lifetime. For high-speed
communication, external modulation is the scheme of
choice and a lot of effort is put into engineering highly
efficient and fast amplitude and phase modulators. Since
free-space optics are fairly bulky, expensive, and prone to
misalignment, fiber coupled integrated optics are today’s
(and tomorrow’s) standard.
Before one thinks about building integrated optics, the
basic physics behind light modulation should be well un-
derstood. To acquire this knowledge, experimenting with
free-space bulk modulators can be very useful. In this ar-
ticle, we describe experimental results pertaining to the
basic properties of phase and amplitude modulators. A
comprehensive description of the underlying theory will
tie the results to their theoretical foundation.
II. Introduction to phase and amplitude
modulators using birefringent crystals
In this experiment, we constructed a phase modulator
by applying an ac electric field across an anisotropic crys-
tal. We used LiNbO3 due to its excellent optical proper-
ties and large electro-optic coefficients as will be described
in detail later on.
To understand the principle behind phase modulation
using anisotropic media, we will present a brief summary
of the underlying theory. Anisotropic media are materials
in which the dipole moment and therefore the dielectric
displacement vector D depends on the direction as well
as the magnitude of the incident electric field vector E.
P (ω) = 0 χ̄(ω)E(ω)
where χ̄(ω) is the electric susceptibility tensor and P (ω)
the volume polarization.
In all of our discussions we will assume the material
to behave linearly, which means that we can write the
dielectric displacement as follows;
D(ω) = 0 E(ω) + P (ω)
= 0 E(ω) + 0 χ̄(ω)E(ω)
= 0 (1 + χ̄(ω))E(ω) = 0 ¯(ω)E(ω)
where ¯(ω) is the relative dielectric tensor. It is easy to
see that the structure of either the susceptibility tensor
or the dielectric tensor are determined by the symme-
try properties of the medium under investigation. By
knowing the symmetry class of the crystal we are work-
ing with, we can simplify the tensor by taking advantage
of this knowledge. This can be done as shown here for
LiNbO3 . This crystal belongs into the 3m point group
and has a single 3-fold axis (i.e. trigonal). Rotating the
crystal by 120◦ doesn’t change its appearance and there-
fore must not change its physical properties. This means
that the dielectric tensor must remain unchanged under
a 120◦ rotation which can be represented mathematically
102 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. XX, NO. Y, MAY 2002

as follows; crystal, the z-component of the dielectric displacement

will vanish and we are left with a simplified expression;
−1
¯0 =  ¯ S̄
S̄  1
cos(θ) sin(θ) 0 E⊥ = b̄⊥ D⊥ (2)
with S̄ =  − sin(θ) cos(θ) 0  (unitary) 0
0 0 1 Substituting Eqn. 2 into Eqn. 1, we arrive at the fol-
lowing eigenvalue equation;
Applying this transformation and using the fact that
the dielectric tensor is hermitian for lossless media (i.e. 1
D⊥ = b̄⊥ D⊥ (3)
ij = ∗ji ) as well as real in the case where no magnetic n2
fields are present, we arrive at the following form for the In the case of a uniaxial system, the dielectric tensor
dielectric tensor for a trigonal crystal; and the impermeability tensor have the following form;
   2 
11 0 0 no 0 0
¯ =  0 11 0  ¯ =  0 n2o 0 
0 0 33 0 0 n2e
1/n2o
 
0 0
By spatial and time reversal symmetry as well as power
b̄ =  0 1/n2o 0 
conservation, we could reduce the nine elements of the
0 0 1/n2e
tensor down to two. The crystal axis with 33 is often
called the optical or c-axis of the crystal. Its associated According to the above described propagation direc-
refractive index is denoted by ne , where the subscript tion with respect to the optical axis, the unitary rotation
stands for “extraordinary”. The refractive index of the transformation matrix S̄ looks as follows;
other two crystal axis is represented accordingly by no ,  
the “ordinary” index. 1 0 0
Propagating a light beam of arbitrary polarization S̄ =  0 cos(θ) sin(θ) 
along the c-axis will not change the polarization state 0 − sin(θ) cos(θ)
of the light, since all the components, no matter how we After application of this transformation to the imper-
break them up, will see identical refractive indices equal meability tensor and reduction to its perpendicular form
to no . Things get more interesting, when we propagate as described in Eqn. 2, we arrive at
at an angle with respect to the c-axis. Different polariza- !
tion components will see different refractive indices and 1
n2o 0
a net phase retardation between these components will b̄⊥ =
0 n12 cos2 (θ) + n12 sin2 (θ)
occur. After exiting the crystal, the polarization state of o e

the light could be changed. Since this matrix is already in diagonal form, the eigen-
To demonstrate this, let us look at a simple example. value problem from Eqn. 3 can be solved easily. The re-
Assume a uniaxial crystal (such as LiNbO3 ) with a beam fractive index for a beam polarized perpendicular to the
propagating in the y-z-plane at an angle θ with respect to y-z-plane is n0 while a beam polarized in the y-z-plane
the z-axis (which is equal to the optical axis). Combining sees a refractive index
Maxwell’s equations we can easily arrive at the following  −1/2
equation; 1 2 1 2
n= cos (θ) + sin (θ)
D = 0 n2 [E − k̂(k̂ · E)] (1) n2o n2e

where k̂ is a unit vector pointing in the direction of prop-
agation. Note that the dielectric displacement vector is
necessarily perpendicular to k̂, not the electric field it-
self! A result of this fact is the so-called Poyntingvector
walkoff, when the direction of energy flow does not coin-
cide with the direction of beam propagation. For future
use, we will re-write the relation between the electric field
and the dielectric displacement as follows;
D = 0 ¯E
1 −1 1 quantitatively, one choses to express the effect of electric
E = ¯ D = b̄D
0 0
where b̄ is called the impermeability tensor. If we rotate
our coordinate system in such a way that the new z-axis is
collinear with the direction of light propagation inside the
This means that we have an angular dependent bire-
fringence. This will become handy in the case of critical
phasematching as used for second harmonic generation.
In this case, the angle of propagation is chosen such that
the refractive index of the fundamental is equal to the re-
fractive index experienced by the second harmonic. We
will talk about this in more detail in another article.
It might not be surprising that the physical proper-
ties of a crystal can be influenced by externally applied
electric and magnetic fields. To describe these changes
fields to the crystal properties through changes of the
impermeability tensor;
(0)
bij = bij + ∆bij
∆bij = rijk Ek
HIGH-SPEED OPTICAL MODULATORS 103

where r̄ is the electro-optic tensor and E the externally thickness of the crystal in the z-direction. If we want to
applied field. Once again, symmetry considerations lead cause a 180◦ phase shift, we half to apply the so-called
to a tremendous simplification of the tensor’s structure. “half-wave voltage” V1/2 . This voltage can be calculated
Using the well known contracted notation, we can write by setting ∆φ = π. Solving for V1/2 we get
the electro-optic tensor for LiNbO3 the following way;
λ d
  V1/2 = (5)
0 −r22 r13 n3e r33 l
 0 r22 r13 

 0 0

r33  Using Eqn. 5, we can re-write Eqn. 4 in an even simpler
r̄ = 
  form.
 0 r51 0  V
 r51 0 0  ∆φ = π
V1/2
−r22 0 0
Applying a dc voltage across the crystal might not
Calculating the new impermeability tensor in the pres- be the most exciting thing to do. To use the crystal
ence of an applied electric field leads to b̄ = as a high-speed phase modulator, we have to apply a
  fast varying ac signal. By now, we have the means to
b0 − r22 Ey + r13 Ez −r22 Ex r51 Ex predict what would happen to the traversing light after
 −r22 Ex b0 + r22 Ey + r13 Ez r51 Ey  passing through such a system. Since any type of ap-
r51 Ex r51 Ey be + r33 Ez plied signal can be decomposed by Fourier analysis into

Since the r33 coefficient is known to be larger than sinusoids, it suffices to investigate the effect of a single
the other coefficients, we chose to propagate through the frequency sinusoidal voltage. Let us model this signal by
crystal along either the x or y-axis. Applying an external Ez = Em sin(ωm t). We can plug this directly into Eqn. 4;
electric field only in the z-direction, the perpendicular π 3
∆φ = n r33 lEm sin(ωm t)
impermeability tensor then simplifies to λ e
  = ∆φ0 sin(ωm t)
bo + r13 Ez 0 π 3
b̄⊥ = with ∆φ0 ≡ n r33 lEm
0 be + r33 Ez
λ e
The eigenvalues and eigenvalues of this simple diagonal The electric field of the light right after the crystal can
matrix are easily determined. If we want to take advan- then be expressed as follows.
tage of the large r33 coefficient, we have to polarize the
light along the z-axis. The refractive index along this E = E0 cos(kl − ωt − ∆φ0 sin(ωm t))
axis is then = E0 {cos(kl − ωt) cos(∆φ0 sin(ωm t))
1 1 + sin(kl − ωt) sin(∆φ0 sin(ωm t))}
= be + r33 Ez = + r33 Ez
n2z n2e
We can use the following expansions to simplify the above
nz = ne (1 + n2e r33 Ez )−1/2 expression.
n2e r33 Ez
 
≈ ne 1 −
X
2 cos(∆φ0 sin(ωm t)) = J0 (∆φ0 ) + 2 JN (∆φ0 ) cos(N ωm t)
3 Neven
n r33 Ez
= ne − e
X
2 sin(∆φ0 sin(ωm t)) = 2 JN (∆φ0 ) sin(N ωm t)
Nodd
To calculate the phase retardation that a beam will
experience by traveling through the crystal due to an This leads to the following expression for the normalized
applied field Ez , we have to express the relative change electric field of the light after passing through the crystal;
in the refractive index caused by the external field. We E
therefore define = J0 (∆φ0 ) cos(ωt) +
E0
n3e r33 Ez
X
∆nz ≡ nz (Ez = 0) − nz (Ez ) = JN (∆φ0 ){cos(ωt + N ωm t) + (−1)N cos(ωt − N ωm t)}
2 N

After traversing a crystal of length l, the net phase shift This means that we are expecting to see sidebands
imposed onto light of wavelength λ expressed in radians around the carrier frequency, evenly spaced by the mod-
is then given by ulation frequency ωm . In fact, we observed these side-
2π∆nz π bands using a scanning confocal interferometer. By in-
∆φ = l = n3e r33 Ez l (4) creasing the peak electric field Em across the crystal, we
λ λ
could observe up to three symmetric sidebands centered
The applied voltage V and the amplitude of the electric around the carrier. The relative amplitude of the side-
field are simply related by Ez = V /d, where d is the bands changed as predicted by the above stated relation.
104 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. XX, NO. Y, MAY 2002
Due to the fact that our scope did not have the capabil-
ity to store the observed waveform, a graphical example
cannot be presented at this point.
We tried to fit the modulation sideband’s amplitudes to
the analytical expression given above to check the Bessel
function dependence. This did not yield a reasonable re-
sult. Discrepancies of about 15% could have been caused
by fluctuations of the waveform displayed on the scope.
We observed a steady drift during our measurements,
which might have resulted from thermal expansion of the
interferometer and amplitude fluctuations of the helium-
neon laser. A more stable and higher resolution interfer-
ometer in combination with a digital scope will certainly
improve the measurement of the sidebands.
So far, we have only talked about pure phase modula-
tion. By placing a polarizer in front of the crystal1 and an
analyzer after it, we can build an amplitude modulator.
This can be easily understood by the following argument.
If the incident light is polarized at 45◦ with respect to the
optical axis, the polarization can be decomposed along
the eigenvectors of the crystal, which coincide with the z
and y-axis (if we propagate in the x-direction). We saw
that each component will experience a different refrac-
tive index. Even without any applied field, there will be
a net phase retardation caused by ∆n(Ez = 0) = ne −no .
Therefore, the exiting light will, in general, be elliptically
polarized.
We already found an expression for the refractive index
along the z-direction as a function of an applied electric
field. Similarly, we can find an expression for the refrac-
tive index along the y-direction;
n3o r13 Ez
ny ≈ n o −
2
Neglecting the residual net phase shift, we can then ex-
press the relative phase shift between the two polarization
components as follows;
2π∆n
∆φ = l
λ
600
LiNbO3 Phase Modulator, crossed polarizers
LiNbO3 Phase Modulator, parallel polarizers
500
Output Power (µW)
400
300
200
100
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
Voltage (V)
Fig. 1. Power transmission of an x-cut LiNbO3 amplitude mod-
ulator as specified in the text as a function of the applied voltage
Vz . The half-wave voltage V1/2 is close to 900 V.
A. Experimental Results
All theory is gray, so let us take a look at a practical
example. We used a 12 mm long and 4 mm thick (in the
z-direction) x-cut LiNbO3 crystal. As a light source, we
used a standard Helium-Neon laser operating at a wave-
length of 632.8 nm. Using the Sellmeier equation for this
crystal, we found the following refractive indices;
nz = 2.203 and ny = 2.286
From the literature2 , we used the following values for
the electro-optic tensor components;
r13 = 10 pm/V and r33 = 32.2 pm/V
Plugging in those numbers into the expression for the
half-wave voltage, we get V1/2 ≈ 938.3 V. The outcome of
the experiment is shown in Fig. 1. We can determine the
half-wave voltage by measuring the voltage differential
between a transmission minimum and a maximum. This
leads to an experimental value of about 900 V, which
Ez  3
no r13 − n3e r33 

∆n =
2
Defining the half-wave voltage as before, we find the
following analytical expression;
λ d
V1/2 =
|n3o r13 − n3e r33 | l
If the applied voltage is such that the exiting beam is
linearly polarized, we can place an analyzer after the crys-
tal and block (or transmit) the light completely. Chang-
ing the applied voltage by the half-wave voltage will cause
a net phase shift between the polarization components of
180◦ and will therefore cause a rotation of the polariza-
tion by 90◦ . The light is still linearly polarized, but will
be transmitted (or blocked) by the analyzer placed after
the crystal.
1 Or by choosing the incoming polarization correctly.
agrees very well with the theoretically predicted value.
III. Acousto-optic amplitude modulators
After having gone through the analysis of the electro-
optic modulator (EOM) in great detail, we will treat the
acousto-optic modulator (AOM) more qualitatively. Let
us first try to draw a connection between those two mod-
ulators.
We saw that we can change the physical properties of
an electro-optic crystal by applying a voltage across it.
This change was expressed by a modification of the im-
permeability tensor. The quantity that included the sys-
tem’s response to externally applied fields was the electro-
optic tensor r̄. It does not take much imagination to see
that an applied strain or stress could change the physical
properties of a crystal as well. Unlike the electric field, it
2 CRC Handbook of Lasers
HIGH-SPEED OPTICAL MODULATORS 105

0.7
takes 9 components to represent strain and stress. The
Experimental Data

Angle between 0th and 1st order (degrees)

strain matrix s̄ is therefore a second rank tensor. As be- Linear Regression
fore, we are interested to express the effect of this strain
0.6
tensor on the impermeability tensor. To relate these two
quantities it obviously takes a fourth rank tensor p̄, which
is called the photoelastic tensor. We can then re-write an 0.5
earlier statement about the change in the impermeability
tensor as follows;
0.4
∆bij = pijkl skl

The photoelastic tensor will reflect material properties,

such as symmetry, which will reduce the number of non-
zero elements accordingly. Once we calculated the new
impermeability tensor according to the applied strain and
stress, we can proceed as before. By solving the eigen-
value equation, we will be able to calculate the new re-
fractive indices as well as the new principal axis system
in which the dielectric tensor (and the impermeability
tensor) are diagonal.
In practice, acousto-optic modulators are realized by
applying an ac electric field to a piezoelectric transducer,
which in turn compresses a given transparent crystal (e.g.
quartz) along one direction. We used an IntraAction
AOM-40R which uses dense flint glass as the acousto-
optic material. The carrier frequency was specified to be
40 MHz, but can be varied around this value by a few tens
of megahertz. To achieve amplitude modulation of the
beam, one has to be able to switch the carrier on and off,
or amplitude modulate it. Some AOMs are designed to
be driven with digital signals, others with analog signals.
For pulse picking systems and Q-switches inside of laser
cavities, the digital type might be preferable. The AOM-
40R was operated using an analog driver which allowed
us to amplitude modulate the carrier.
Unlike in the case of the EOM, amplitude modulation
is achieved by deflection of the propagating beam. This
can be understood qualitatively as follows. The induced
acoustic wave creates a traveling density grating across
the crystal. This in turn leads to local changes in the
refractive index. We can picture the light being scat-
tered off this refractive index grating analogously to X-
ray diffraction off of crystals. Here, the Bragg condition
mλ = 2d sin(θB ) determines the angle of efficient scat-
tering. The atomic spacing d gets replaced by the wave-
length Λ of the acoustic wave and we also have to account
for the change of wavelength inside the material. Thus,
the Bragg condition for the AOM is
λ with the frequency.
= 2Λ sin(θB ) (6)
n
Since the index grating moves inside the crystal with
the speed of the compressional wave, the deflected wave
will also be slightly frequency shifted in a traveling wave
AOM. Another interesting point arises from the fact that
the acoustic wave inside the crystal might not be repre-
sented well by a plane wave due to the finite width of the
crystal. The angular spread θ0 of the acoustic field can
0.3
30 40 50 60 70
Acoustic Carrier Frequency (MHz)
Fig. 2. Deflection angle as a function of acoustic carrier frequency.
The predicted linear dependence for small angles is obvious.
be approximated by
Λ
θ0 ≈
2πw
where w is the width of the acoustic field. If this angle
is much larger than the Bragg angle, several diffracted
orders can meet the Bragg condition and we will observe
deflected beams in higher orders. If this is the case, we are
said to be operating in the Raman-Nath regime. To char-
acterize the two regimes, one can introduce a parameter
Q = 2θB /θ0 which is less than unity in the Raman-Nath
regime and greater than unity otherwise. By changing
the carrier frequency of the acoustic field one can switch
between the two regimes.
A. Experimental Results
From Eqn. 6 we can easily derive an analytical expres-
sion for the deflection angle as a function of acoustic car-
rier frequency. We will assume small deflection angles to
simplify the analysis.
λ
= 2Λ sin(θB ) ≈ 2ΛθB
n
λ λνa
⇒ θB = =
2nΛ 2nva
where νa is the frequency of the acoustic field and va its
velocity inside the crystal. We can see that in the limit
of small deflection angles, the Bragg angle scales linearly
The experimental confirmation of this theoretical pre-
diction is shown in Fig. 2. Even though the small changes
in deflection angle impeded a highly accurate measure-
ment, the linearity can clearly be seen. For deflection
angles less than 1◦ , the replacement of the sine by its
argument is most certainly valid.
Last, but not least, let us take a look at diffraction ef-
ficiencies as a function of acoustic field amplitude and
acoustic field frequency. It is reasonable (and can be
106 IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. XX, NO. Y, MAY 2002

Voltage Setting (a.u.) tions.

2.0
0 2 4 6 8 10
In this article, we developed a quantitative theoreti-
cal theory that explains the basics about phase and am-
plitude modulation using electro-optic and photoelastic
crystals. The presented experimental results showed good
1.5
Power in 0th Order (mW)

agreement with the theoretical predictions even though a

more thorough experimental setup can clearly improve
the accuracy of the acquired data. Problems with part
1.0
of the equipment held us from investigating the phase
modulator in more detail. This is certainly a point for
future improvement. A better interferometer as well as
0.5 a digital oscilloscope with storage capabilities as used in
previous experiments will help confirming the theoreti-
Power vs. Carrier Frequency
Power vs. Voltage Setting
cally predicted dependence of the modulation sideband’s
0.0 amplitude to a higher degree of accuracy.
20 30 40 50 60 70
Carrier Frequency (MHz) Acknowledgments
Fig. 3. AOM diffraction efficiencies as a function of acoustic field The authors would like to acknowledge the help by
amplitude and acoustic field frequency for fixed incident angle. Paulina Kuo and Tomas Plettner.

shown analytically) that the diffraction efficiency η varies

with the acoustic
√ intensity Ia . Calculations show that Carsten Langrock (S’02) received the
η ∼ sin2 ( Ia ). Experimental data supporting this de- Diploma in physics from the Heinrich-Heine-
pendence are shown in Fig. 3. Universität, Düsseldorf, in 2001. He is cur-
rently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical
The same graph contains data for a slightly different engineering at Stanford University, Stanford,
experimental setup. Once again, we are looking at the de- CA.
flection efficiency η, but this time as a function of acoustic Currently, he is a Research Assistant in the
Ginzton Laboratory at Stanford University.
carrier frequency. We first optimized the deflection effi- His research interests include generation and
ciency for a carrier frequency of 40 MHz by adjusting the detection of ultrashort optical pulses, nonlin-
ear optics, and terahertz spectroscopy.
angle between the incoming beam and the crystal’s sur-
face normal. Changing the acoustic frequency and there-
fore changing the index grating clearly influences how
much power is deflected out of the zeroth order. This
is not surprising, since we no longer fulfill the Bragg con-
dition for efficient scattering if we change the wavelength
of the acoustic wave. The observed sinusoidal dependence
can be expected.

IV. Conclusions
Phase and amplitude modulators are the foundation of
modern communication. Due to the need for ever increas-
ing bandwidth, research pertaining to the improvement
of these devices is still ongoing. As we have seen in the
case of the EOM, the need for large driving voltages can
be eliminated by decreasing the size of the device. Speed
limitations imposed by capacitive effects in the transverse
modulator scheme described in this article can be cir-
cumvented by traveling wave structures. Nowadays, in-
tegrated phase modulators are capable of operating in
the high gigahertz regime and are merely limited by the
problem of finite impedance and velocity matching.
Even though modern AOMs are also capable of oper-
ating at a few gigahertz, they are more commonly found
in applications where amplitude modulation up to a few
hundred megahertz is needed. Using the deflected beam
instead if the zeroth order beam, 100% contrast can be
achieved, which might be important for some applica-