Effect of Temperature and Irradiation Intensity on the Harmonic and Intermodulation Performance of Mach-Zehnder Optomodulator

This paper presents closed-form expressions for the amplitudes of the harmonics and intermodulation products resulting from driving a Mach-Zehnder optomodulator by a multisinusoidal RF voltage. These expressions are functions of the phase shift caused by the DC bias, phi(BIAS), and the modulator's switching voltage, V-pi, required to change the output light intensity from its maximum value to its minimum value. The special case of a driving two-tone equal-amplitude RF voltage is considered in detail. The results show that the harmonic and intermodulation performance of the Mach-Zehnder optomodulator are strongly dependent on the parameters phi(BIAS) and Vp. These parameters are strongly dependent on many physical and chemical phenomena; for example irradiation intensity and temperature variations. Using the results obtained in this paper, a data base can be established for the variation of the harmonic and intermodulation performance of Mach-Zehnder optomodulators with many physical an