As explained in the introduction, a Mach-Zehnder modulator is based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), which splits the light in two branches and then recombines them by interference. In each branch, a heater-based phase shifter is placed to ensure the MZM is biased at quadrature. A carrier. Here VM is the differential voltage applied between the two input ports and V is the voltage necessary for phase shift, also called the switching voltage. and are the voltage swings on the two modulator arms. =, then we get a purely phase modulated signal and. The Mach–Zehnder intensity Modulator (MZM), named after Ludwig Mach and Ludwig Zehnder, is based on the corresponding interferometer. The output of the MZM depends on the phase. Optical modulators use electrical signals to modify the physical characteristics of materials in such a way that the propagation conditions of light change. This enables high extinction ratios, allowing efficient encoding of digital signals by switching between constructive (“ON”) and.
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