Final Technical Report for Microelectromechanical Photonic Switches

摘要

TI has successfuly fabricated asymmetrical micromirrors up to 350 um long forfiber-optic shutter applications. We overcame the challenge of maintaining straightness in mirror sizes 50 microns by modifying the conventional micromirror process. There are several different options for process modeling and optimization. We chose a corrugated structure because of the simple process modification and optimum bending curvature. Modeling showed a 41-fold curvature reduction. Fabricated corrugated structures exhibited a 19.8X straightness improvement. In addition, a simple layout design niodifaction to increase the tile angle provided a boost in shutter performance. We consolidated first-pass results from working asymmetrical rnirrors to design and fabricate a second chip to be packaged in a miniaturized 4 x 4 fiber-optic crossbar system. A 350 micron long mirror with a r-micron spacer enables the mirror to block 80 micron beams. We designed and fabricated a package to host the crossbar swtich points.