A novel low-cost and simple fabrication technology for tunable dielectric active and passive optical air-gap devices

摘要

A novel low cost technology for fabrication of micro-opto-electro-mechanical devices based on plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) of dielectric materials is presented. Applying surface micromachining, we produce suspended dielectric membranes and cantilevers by involving a common photo resist as sacrificial layer. The intrinsic stress in the layers is adjusted using an interlacing of high (13.56MHz) and low (130kHz) plasma excitation frequencies in the PECVD. A diffraction image method and microstructures are used for the homogeneous stress evaluation. The stress of silicon nitride can be varied in a wide range between +850MPa compressive and ―300MPa tensile and no dependence of the frequency on silicon dioxide intrinsic stress is noticed. Depending on lateral design and gradient stress variation, Fabry-Perot filter membranes with radius of curvature (ROC) between ―1.7mm and 51mm as well as cavity lengths between 2.3μm and 13.5μm are implemented. Thus, convex, concave and plane membranes are produced. Furthermore, a thermally tuned air-gap Fabry-Perot filter with 8nm FWHM and a tunability of 15nm/mA is fabricated. Strategies of combining these filters with organic laser materials are developed. For this purpose, molecular glasses capable of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) are chosen, e.g. the molecular glass 4-Spiro~2 which shows an amplified spontaneous emission line at a low threshold of 3.2μJ/cm~2 pump laser power density.