Deeply-Etched Optical MEMS Tunable Filter for Swept Laser Source Applications

Author

Omran, Hesham ; Sabry, Yasser M. ; Sadek, Mohamed ; Hassan, Karim ; Shalaby, Mohamed Y. ; Khalil, Diaa

Author_Institution

Dept. of Eng., Ain Shams Univ., Cairo, Egypt

Volume

26

Issue

1

fYear

2014

fDate

Jan.1, 2014

Firstpage

37

Lastpage

39

Abstract

In this letter, we report a wide tuning range MEMS-based swept laser source using deep reactive ion etching on an SoI substrate. A MEMS Fabry-Pérot filter with a free-spectral range and a tuning range wider than 94 nm is presented. The measured transmission loss of the filter is between -10.2 and -13.6 dB. This filter is used to construct a swept laser source with 85 nm tuning range. These results represent the widest tuning range reported in literature for an in-plane SoI-MEMS based swept laser source using deeply-etched free-standing distributed-Bragg-reflection mirrors. The recorded tuning range enables the use of the in-plane MEMS filter in optical coherence tomography applications.

Keywords

distributed Bragg reflector lasers; integrated optics; laser mirrors; laser tuning; micro-optomechanical devices; optical filters; optical losses; sputter etching; MEMS Fabry-Perot filter; SOI substrate; Si; deep reactive ion etching; deeply-etched free-standing distributed-Bragg-reflection mirrors; deeply-etched optical MEMS tunable filter; free-spectral range; in-plane SOI-MEMS filter; optical coherence tomography applications; swept laser source applications; transmission loss; wavelength 85 nm; Laser tuning; Micromechanical devices; Mirrors; Optical fiber filters; Optical fibers; Bragg mirror; DRIE; Fabry–Pérot filter; SS-OCT; swept laser source;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2013.2288016

Filename

6648421