An Integrated Photonic Electric-Field Sensor Utilizing a 1 x 2 YBB Mach-Zehnder Interferometric Modulator with a Titanium-Diffused Lithium Niobate Waveguide and a Dipole Patch Antenna

We studied photonic electric-field sensors using a 1 x 2 YBB-MZI modulator composed of two complementary outputs and a 3 dB directional coupler based on the electro-optic effect and titanium diffused lithium-niobate optical waveguides. The measured DC switching voltage and extinction ratio at the wavelength 1.3 mu m were similar to 16.6 V and similar to 14.7 dB, respectively. The minimum detectable fields were similar to 1.12 V/m and similar to 3.3 V/m, corresponding to the similar to 22 dB and 18 dB dynamic ranges of similar to 10 MHz and 50 MHz, respectively, for an rf power of 20 dBm. The sensor shows an almost linear response to the applied electric-field strength within the range of 0.29 V/m to 29.8 V/m.