Photonic Crystal Waveguide Switches with Movable Slabs

摘要

Photonic crystal waveguide switches with movable micro-electro-mechanical actuators are proposed and fabricated by silicon micro-machining. The switch structure consists of in-line input and output photonic crystal waveguide slabs, and a switching slab to bridge the gap between the waveguides. By driving the switching slab with a micro electromechanical actuator, the transmission between the waveguides is modulated. For driving the slabs, two kinds of actuator, i.e., vertical and parallel motion actuators are proposed for the respective switches. The switching characteristics are also investigated by calculations using the finite-difference time-domain method.