Electro-optic modulator having gated-dither bias control

TLDR: In this paper, a closed loop bias control system for maintaining the modulator at its half-power point by modulating a time varying signal on and off at a modulation frequency fm is presented.

Abstract: An electro-optic modulator includes a closed loop bias control system for maintaining the modulator at its half-power point by modulating a time varying signal on and off at a modulation frequency fm. The modulation frequency fm is much lower than the frequency components within the spectrum of the time varying signal, such that, energy within the time varying signal spectrum is recovered at the modulation frequency when the modulator is not operating at the half-power point. A phase sensitive demodulator operating at the modulation frequency fm demodulates a signal indicative of the modulator optical output signal to provide a DC voltage signal value indicative of the half-power point bias error value. The time varying voltage signal may be a dither noise signal or any other time varying signal such as a signal with a single frequency component (e.g. a sine or cosine) or a signal with a plurality of frequency components (e.g., a square wave).