Design and simulation of a 16-bit variable optical attenuator

Author

Sun, W. ; Mughal, M.J. ; Noell, W. ; Perez, F. ; Riza, N.A. ; de Rooij, N.

Author_Institution

The Sensors, Actuators & Microsystems Lab., Inst. of Microtechnology, Neuchatel, Switzerland

fYear

2002

fDate

20-23 Aug. 2002

Firstpage

53

Lastpage

54

Abstract

Presents an initial design and simulation results of 16-bit variable optical attenuator (VOA) with chip dimensions of 4 /spl times/ 4 /spl mu/m/sup 2/. Initial results indicate device-switching time is below 1 ms at a driving voltage of above 100 V. VOAs are widely used in optical communication and signal processing systems to attenuate light intensity between input and output optical ports. This VOA is currently under development and will be fabricated using SOI technology.

Keywords

micromirrors; optical attenuators; optical communication equipment; optical information processing; silicon-on-insulator; 1 ms; 100 V; 16 bit; SOI technology; chip dimensions; device-switching time; driving voltage; light intensity; optical communication; optical ports; signal processing systems; simulation results; variable optical attenuator; Electrodes; Equations; Micromirrors; Mirrors; Optical attenuators; Optical design; Optical fiber communication; Optical interferometry; Optical signal processing; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Optical MEMs, 2002. Conference Digest. 2002 IEEE/LEOS International Conference on

Conference_Location

Lugano, Switzerland

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7595-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/OMEMS.2002.1031439

Filename

1031439