NDLI: A bulk micromachined tiltable mirror array digital variable optical attenuator

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Sun, W. Mughal, J. Perez, F. Noell, W. Riza, N.A. de Rooij, N.F.
Copyright Year	2003
Description	Author affiliation: Inst. of Microtechnol., Neuchatel Univ., Switzerland (Sun, W.)
Abstract	We present in this paper the simulation, fabrication, assembly, and some mechanical behavior of an electrostatically-actuated MEMS variable optical attenuator (VOA). It consists of two main parts; the device chip and the electrode chip. The device chip is fabricated with a 2-masks process from a SOI wafer, where mirror arrays are located on the front-side device layer with aligned openings on the back-side handle layer. We also examine Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ as a protection for the entire wafer and a mask for the handle layer where the exposed silicon is etched by KOH. The mirror array contains 16 equal-length gold-coated silicon platforms that span an area of 1500/spl times/1500 /spl mu/m/sup 2/. The mirrors, which widths vary from 40 /spl mu/m to 250 /spl mu/m, are each suspended by two silicon torsion beams, where the widths are successfully reduced to as narrow as 1 /spl mu/m by means of a HF vapor phase etcher (VPE). Current profilometric measurements were all performed on previously fabricated devices with 3 /spl mu/m beams. Measured tilt angles, longitudinal bending, and resonance frequencies agree well with simulations. A reasonable yield can be achieved as the fragile structures survive handling as well as dicing shocks. Two suspension configurations were compared and investigated. The electrode, also fabricated with a 2-masks process, is a quartz glass piece that contains patterned aluminum and SU8 columns as spacers for electrostatic actuation. The two parts are aligned and assembled chip-wise. The device is designed to be capable of producing 16-bit=65536 levels of linear attenuation when a sequence of driving voltage of about 100 V is applied to corresponding electrodes.
Sponsorship	IEEE Electron Devices Soc
Starting Page	1772
Ending Page	1775
File Size	386606
Page Count	4
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0780377311
DOI	10.1109/SENSOR.2003.1217129
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2003-06-08
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Optical arrays Mirrors Optical attenuators Electrodes Silicon Assembly Etching Optical device fabrication Micromechanical devices Protection
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

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