High-Power Electroabsorption Modulator Using Intrastep Quantum Well

An electroabsorption modulator using the intrastep quantum well (IQW)
active region is fabricated for optical network systems. The strain-compensated InGaAsP/InGaAsP IQW shows good material quality and improved modulation properties, high extinction ratio efficiency 10dB/V and low capacitance (<0.42pF), with which an ultra high frequency (>15GHz) can be obtained. High-speed measurement under high-power excitation shows no power saturation up to excitation power of 21dBm. To our knowledge, the input optical power is the highest reported for multi-quantum well EAMs without heat sinks.