RESEARCH
We have been implementing design and synthesis of a high-performance polymer, solution of issues toward reliability improvement, prototyping of an optical modulator, and a study of performance evaluation. As a result, they successfully developed a polymer with high optical properties and excellent environumental stability and integrated it into a device. Moreover, jointly with industries, we fabricated a polymer optical modulator and as a result, successfully accomplished a demonstration of ultra-high-speed optical data transmission for the first time worldwide.
The world’s first achievement of ultra-high speed, power saving and cost reduction
The results of the high-frequency responsivity of this polymer modulator demonstrated that the modulator had a 2–3 fold frequency responsiveness, compared to crystals of conventional inorganic materials, and that it was able to perform ultra-high-speed optical signal of more than 100 Gb/s OOK and 200 Gb/s PAM4 at a low operating voltage on the order of 1 volt. This achievement is expected as a technology leading to drastic power saving of communication equipment. In addition, since the polymer optical modulator can be fabricated with a simple coating technique, it can be integrated with silicon optical integration technology, thus enabling a drastic cost reduction taking advantage of smaller footprint.
High-speed optical fiber communications
It is suggested that the electrooptic polymer theoretically has a responsiveness of 100 Gb/s or higher. This means that it can realize such ultra-high-speed data transmission that cannot be achieved by optical modulators made of other materials.
