NEMS variable optical attenuator (VOA) driven by optical force

Author

Dong, B. ; Cai, H. ; Gu, Y.D. ; Yang, Z.C. ; Jin, Y.F. ; Hao, Y.L. ; Kwong, D.L. ; Liu, A.Q.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Nanyang Technol. Univ., Singapore, Singapore

fYear

2015

fDate

18-22 Jan. 2015

Firstpage

972

Lastpage

975

Abstract

This paper reports a Nanoelectromechanical System (NEMS) Variable Optical Attenuator (VOA) driven by the optical gradient force. The VOA is realized via a waveguide based directional coupler. The gap in the directional coupler is controlled via an optical force driven actuator. The doubly-clamped silicon beam actuator is controlled by tuning the wavelength of control light. The signal light can be attenuated to 20% of original value in the experiment. The NEMS VOAs have the merits of small dimension, low power consumption and good capability for all optical integration, making it a good candidate for future applications in silicon photonics circuit and optical communication devices.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; integrated optics; laser tuning; nanoelectromechanical devices; nanophotonics; optical attenuators; optical directional couplers; optical fabrication; optical waveguides; silicon; NEMS variable optical attenuator; Si; VOA; all optical integration; doubly-clamped silicon beam actuator; light attenuation; low power consumption; nanoelectromechanical system; optical communication devices; optical gradient force; silicon photonics circuit; waveguide-based directional coupler; wavelength tuning; Actuators; Nanoelectromechanical systems; Optical attenuators; Optical coupling; Optical fibers; Optical ring resonators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), 2015 28th IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Estoril

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MEMSYS.2015.7051123

Filename

7051123