Patent attributes
An optical modulator is provided that is capable of preventing a short circuit at a step such as an annealing step in a manufacturing process, thereby improving the manufacturing yield. The optical modulator that is a Mach-Zehnder optical modulator, includes: an input optical coupler; a pair of first and second optical waveguides in parallel guiding an input light branched into two by the input optical coupler; and an output optical coupler coupling output lights of the first and second optical waveguides, wherein the two optical waveguides have semiconductor junctions formed at boundaries between two first polarity regions and a second polarity region formed between the two first polarity regions, each forming an optical phase modulation unit, the two first polarity regions are formed outside the first and second optical waveguides, the second polarity region is formed between the first and second optical waveguides, and the second polarity region is longer in region length in an optical waveguide direction than the first polarity region.
