| There have been recent significant advances in nonlinear electro-optic (EO) polymers and various experimental results to demonstrate the merits of EO polymer devices. EO polymers are well known for their low dispersion between optical wave and microwave frequencies and fast electronic response. In addition, they have shown great promise in optical nonlinearity, mechanical and thermal properties, low cost and ease of processing and fabrication of device structures. Nonlinear optical devices based on polymers have recently been utilized for a variety of photonic applications such as high-speed photonic modulators and switches, and been used in harmonic generation and phase conjugation.; We have introduced, as another useful device in optical communication system, photonic radio frequency (RF) phase shifters that shift the phase of RF signal optically. They have a remarkable potential for making compact and powerful phased array antennas with a highly linear and high frequency characteristic. The use of fiber optic control of phased array antennas has been proven to dramatically reduce size and weight of these antenna systems. Integration of arrays on a single chip will give a boost to the development of optically controlled large conformal antennas. The important characteristic of such devices is that they set the phase of an RF signal without significantly altering its amplitude. Our novel balanced design has been able to greatly improve this feature as well as the phase linearity.; We have extended this work by developing new versions of single-sideband (SSB) modulators. The SSB modulators, which also play an important role in photonic radio frequency (RF) phase shifters, will make an important contribution to fiber-wireless communication systems, photonic time stretcher, photonic oscillators and related high frequency analog transmission systems. These systems share a basic problem called the dispersion penalty. In this case the upper and lower sidebands from a modulator travel at different velocities in the fiber and effectively cancel themselves out when they get out of phase with each other. This problem is effectively addressed by going to a SSB approach. |
