Electro-optic mapping systems of electric-field using CW laser diodes

Two novel systems are proposed to perform the electro-optic (EO) mapping of the electric-field strength close to electrode structure using CW laser diodes. By these systems, mappings of both static (DC) and high-frequency electric-field can be obtained. For the static field, the field is chopped to increase the sensitivity performance. For the high-frequency field, an intensity modulation laser, instead of a pulse laser, is used to perform the mapping measurement in frequency domain, instead of in time domain. This approach greatly simplifies the system. An experiment set-up using a vertical cavity surface emitted laser diode (VCSEL) of a wavelength 850 nm and its mapping results for a coplanar waveguide (CPW) with the signal frequency around I GHz are reported. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.