Metal Information Center

Bias control for lithium niobate modulators

February 26, 2008 – 10:43 am

The MBC-LN series of modulator bias controllers is specially designed to optimise the performance of lithium niobate modulators in systems and laboratories

Lithium niobate (LiNb03) modulators have proven robustness and high reliability. They have been widely used since the mid-1990s in long-haul optical networks for their ability to modulate optical signal from laser diodes with short transition times and without chirp. Thanks to their broad wavelength performance, they currently also offer modulation solutions to fibre lasers, widening the scope of applications of those sources.
LiNb03 intensity modulators are Mach-Zehnder type interferometric devices that exhibit a cosine transfer function.

Although highly stable components, their working point can suffer slow drift due to strong variations of external conditions.

The Photline MBC-LN family of bias controllers are specially designed to stabilise the working point of LiNb03 Mach-Zehnder modulators.

They use digital signal processing based on an original FFT principle that allows users to easily change the dithering frequency of the tone signal, so as to adapt to a wide variety of applications.

MBC controllers are available as bench top turnkey units and as OEM boards for integration in systems.