Publications

High Efficiency Optical MEMS by the Integration of Photonic Lattices with Surface MEMS

Fleming, J.G.; Lin, Shawn-Yu L.; Mani, Seethambal S.; Sniegowski, Jeffry J.; Rodgers, Murray S.; Dagel, Daryl D.

This report outlines our work on the integration of high efficiency photonic lattice structures with MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems). The simplest of these structures were based on 1-D mirror structures. These were integrated into a variety of devices, movable mirrors, switchable cavities and finally into Bragg fiber structures which enable the control of light in at least 2 dimensions. Of these devices, the most complex were the Bragg fibers. Bragg fibers consist of hollow tubes in which light is guided in a low index media (air) and confined by surrounding Bragg mirror stacks. In this work, structures with internal diameters from 5 to 30 microns have been fabricated and much larger structures should also be possible. We have demonstrated the fabrication of these structures with short wavelength band edges ranging from 400 to 1600nm. There may be potential applications for such structures in the fields of integrated optics and BioMEMS. We have also looked at the possibility of waveguiding in 3 dimensions by integrating defects into 3-dimensional photonic lattice structures. Eventually it may be possible to tune such structures by mechanically modulating the defects.