Electro-mechanical grating device having a continuously controllable diffraction efficiency

摘要

An electro-mechanical grating device (30) including: a base (50) having a surface; a bottom conductive layer (56) provided above said base (50); a spacer layer (65) is provided and a longitudinal channel (67) is formed in said spacer layer (65), wherein said spacer layer (65) defines an upper surface and the channel (67) having a first (67a) and a second (67b) opposing side wall and a bottom (67c); a plurality of spaced apart ribbon elements (72a,72b) disposed parallel to each other and spanning the channel (67), said ribbon elements (72a,72b) are fixed to the upper surface of the spacer layer (65) on each side of the chanel (67) and each of the ribbon elements (72a,72b) is provided with a conductive layer (78a,78b); a mechanical stop (59) provided between the bottom conductive layer (56) and the bottom of the channel (67c) wherein the mechanical stop (59) forms a rigid barrier that is separated from a lower ribbon surface of the ribbon elements (72a,72b) by a distance h0.