High quality 15-period strain-compensated InAsP/InGaP electroabsorption (EA) modulator structures have been grown by atmospheric pressure metal–organic vapor epitaxy. The incorporation of large compressive strain (∼1.7&percent;) in the InAsP wells and tensile strain (∼−1.8&percent;) in the InGaP barriers necessitated the growth of a few InP monolayers between the wells and barriers. The high structural quality of such samples has been demonstrated by (cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy analysis to be free of misfit dislocations and thickness undulations. The detection of a sharp and abrupt room-temperature exciton peak both in the photoconductivity and photoluminescence measurements further confirmed their excellent optical quality. 100 &mgr;m cavity length EA modulators fabricated in these structures exhibited excellent performances namely, an extinction ratio higher than 20 dB for 2.5 V drive voltage, a 3 dB bandwidth over 20 GHz, and low coupling losses to fiber (less than 2.5 dB per facet). ©1997 American Institute of Physics.