Design and realisation of a MEMS based variable optical attenuator

Author

Agrawal, D. ; Bhattacharya, S.

fYear

2007

fDate

16-20 Dec. 2007

Firstpage

695

Lastpage

698

Abstract

The MEMS variable optical attenuator (VOA) presented in this work is an electrostatically controlled, surface micro-machined device. The device is designed, fabricated and optically characterized. The dimension of the device is designed to achieve maximum performance using COVENTORWARE software. A successful fabrication procedure is developed and used to realize the VOA. A releasing process is developed to release the device by using low surface tension liquids and rapid thermal annealing (RTA). The achieved process yield is over 90%. Several devices were tested and attenuation up to 5.6 dB was experimentally observed.

Keywords

micromechanical devices; optical attenuators; rapid thermal annealing; COVENTORWARE software; MEMS based variable optical attenuator; VOA; electrostatically controlled device; low surface tension liquids; rapid thermal annealing; surface micro-machined device; Electric variables control; Micromechanical devices; Optical attenuators; Optical control; Optical design; Optical device fabrication; Optical devices; Optical variables control; Software performance; Surface tension; Design Process; MEMS; Rapid Thermal Annealing; Variable Optical Attenuator (VOA);

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Physics of Semiconductor Devices, 2007. IWPSD 2007. International Workshop on

Conference_Location

Mumbai

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-1728-5

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-1728-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IWPSD.2007.4472615

Filename

4472615