Tunable microcavities in two dimensional photonic crystal waveguides

In this work, we investigate the transmission properties of tunable resonant cavities inside photonic crystal waveguides. We present an optical and a mechanical way of perturbing the optical environment near the resonant cavity enabling tuning and modulation of the in-plane transmission. We have discussed different ways that change the transmission properties of cavities in photonic crystals. Optical switching and wavelength tuning is obtainable by means of induced thermo and electro optical effects. These results indicate the feasibility of high-speed optical integrated circuits based on silicon photonic crystal structures. In addition, simulations have shown that an AFM tip can be used for tuning and damping. These results suggest a stand-alone MEMS solution to create a chip-based on-off switch or tunable filter. Furthermore, one could attempt to integrate more than one silicon tip to combine filter and tuning functionalities on one device. By separately controlling the position of the different tips a programmable integrated optical circuit with higher integration density and functionality could be achieved