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Science 15 November 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5597, pp. 1401 - 1403
DOI: 10.1126/science.1077446
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Reports

Broadband Modulation of Light by Using an Electro-Optic Polymer

Mark Lee,* Howard E. Katz, Christoph Erben, Douglas M. Gill, Padma Gopalan, Joerg D. Heber, David J. McGee

A major challenge to increasing bandwidth in optical telecommunications is to encode electronic signals onto a lightwave carrier by modulating the light up to very fast rates. Polymer electro-optic materials have the necessary properties to function in photonic devices beyond the 40-GHz bandwidth currently available. An appropriate choice of polymers is shown to effectively eliminate the factors contributing to an optical modulator's decay in the high-frequency response. The resulting device modulates light with a bandwidth of 150 to 200 GHz and produces detectable modulation signal at 1.6 THz. These rates are faster than anticipated bandwidth requirements for the foreseeable future.

Bell Laboratories-Lucent Technologies, 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ 07974, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed, E-mail: markl{at}lucent.com

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)