Demonstration of long-term thermally stable silicon-organic hybrid modulators at 85 °C

We report on the first demonstration of long-term thermally stable silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) modulators in accordance with Telcordia standards for high-temperature storage. The devices rely on an organic electro-optic sidechain polymer with a high glass transition temperature of 172 °C. In our high-temperature storage experiments at 85 °C, we find that the electro-optic activity converges to a constant long-term stable level after an initial decay. If we consider a burn-in time of 300 h, the π-voltage of the modulators increases on average by less than 15% if we store the devices for an additional 2400 h. The performance of the devices is demonstrated by generating high-quality 40 Gbit/s OOK signals both after the burn-in period and after extended high-temperature storage.