Integrated Photonic Electric Field Sensor Operating More Than 26 GHz
Jiahong Zhang, Fushen Chen, Bin Liu
Abstract
An integrated photonic electric field sensor comprised of a tapered antenna array and an optical waveguide asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) has been fabricated and experimentally demonstrated. The tapered antenna array is fabricated across the MZI for a broadband receiving of the electromagnetic (EM) wave. The phase of the light beam traveling in the optical waveguide therefore changes based on the electro-optic (EO) effect of the LiNbO3 (LN) crystal, and so does the amplitude of the output end of the MZI. The packaged sensor is only 55 × 15 × 10 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> in size. Experimental results reveal that the response deviation of the sensor is within ±10 dB from 100 kHz to 26.5 GHz. Moreover, the minimum detectable electric field of the sensor is 245 mV/m, and the intense nanosecond EM pulse (EMP) with peak amplitude of 25 kV/m has been detected in the time domain.