A silica-based integrated optic microwave power sensor

A novel silica based integrated optic microwave power sensor has been designed and fabricated. The sensor operated by using the time-average microwave power, dissipated in a microwave absorbing material, to phase modulate an optical signal guided in one arm of an integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The Mach-Zehnder is implemented using multimode interference couplers from ridge waveguides. The phase modulated optical signal is converted into an intensity encoded signal by the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The optical signal is detected, processed and converted to give a measurement of microwave power. Attractive features include fabrication from low loss dielectric materials and its compact size, measuring only 5 mm by 4 mm.;Fabrication of the sensor is done using a glass-on-glass process. A dielectric waveguiding structure is created using SiO;The sensing element measures 200...