Photonic micromachined tunable lasers

This paper covers design, fabrication, packaging and experiments of photonic Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) tunable laser sources. Two different types of MEMS tunable lasers, which are MEMS coupled-cavity lasers and dual-wavelength tunable lasers, are demonstrated as examples of natural synergy of MEMS with photonics. The expansion and penetration of the MEMS technology to silicon nano-photonics creates on-chip optical systems at an unprecedented scale of integration. While producing better integration, robustness and compactness, MEMS improves the functionalities and specifications of laser devices. Additionally, MEMS photonic tunable lasers are able to deliver their merits of small size, fast tuning speed, wide tuning range and CMOS compatible integration which broaden their applications to many fields.