Electro-optic polymer integrated optic devices for space applications

Recent developments in electro-optic polymer materials and devices have led to new opportunities for integrated optic devices in space environments, The results of numerous tests have indicated that polymer materials have many properties that are suitable to be used in space. These results coupled with recent advances in device and material technology will allow very large bandwidth modulators and switches with drive voltages less than 1 V. At IPITEK, we have already designed and fabricated new polymeric modulators with halfwave voltages less than 0.8 V and a halfwave voltage-interaction product of 2.2 V-cm. The low drive voltage allows electro-optic modulators and switches to be driven directly by high-speed logic devices without the use of broadband amplifiers. Low drive voltage devices are very important for space applications where power consumption scales as the square of the modulator half-wave voltage. In addition, our results have demonstrated dual modulators for mixing RF signals to produce sum and difference frequency modulation on an optical beam. Our novel approach allows the suppression of the modulation at the two input RF signals and only the mixing signals remain superimposed on the optical beam. This dual modulator can be used for various encoding/decoding and frequency conversion schemes that are frequently used for space communications, Another application of polymer integrated optics is in the field of optical sensing. Specifically, high frequency (GHz) ultrasonic (sometimes referred to as acoustic) spectrum analysis for characterizing thin film structures will be considered.