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Abstract

When an intensity modulating operation and a phase modulating operation are carried out by employing a 2-electrode MachZehnder type optical modulator preferably a LN-MZ type optical modulator, a drive signal of this 2-electrode LN-MZ type optical modulator is produced from an intensity modulation signal and a phase modulation signal with a low loss and a simple arrangement. A optical modulating apparatus includes a splitter/combiner structured to split an intensity modulation signal inputted into a first input terminal into a first electric signal having an in-phase relationship with that of the intensity modulation signal and second electric signal having an inverse phase relationship therewith, split a phase modulation signal inputted into a second input terminal into a third electric signal having an in-phase relationship with that of the phase modulation signal an also a fourth electric signal having an in-phase relationship therewith, combine the first electric signal with the fourth electric signal to thereby output a first combined signal, and combine the second electric signal with the third electric signal to thereby output a second combined signal; and an optical modulating means structured to split a light carrier wave entered from a light source into two light carrier waves, and to optically modulate the two sets of the split light carrier waves by using the first combined signal and the second combined signal derived from the splitter/combiner, and combine the two phase-modulated above said light carrier waves to output an optical modulation signal.

First Claim