Modeling of multilayer electrode performance in transverse electro-optic modulators

For some electro-optic (EO) modulators, lowering the driving voltage is necessary to reduce the power consumption of the modulators. There are four significant factors influencing the driving voltage of the EO modulators: geometrical parameters of wafer and electrodes, surface and embedded electrodes, material properties of wafer, and structure of modulators. Using the superposition method and surface charge technique, the electric fields, halfwave voltages, switching times and optical transmissions of EO modulators with two-layer, three-layer, and four-layer electrodes are calculated, respectively. It is found that the halfwave voltage decreases while the switching time increase slightly as the number of layers increases. Such study demonstrates that using multilayer electrodes is an effective technique of lowering the halfwave voltage, which may have implication of EO modulator design.