Microelectromechanical fiber optical switches

Abstract

This paper reports the design, fabrication, and testing of a Micro-opto-mechanical grating/mirror switch driven by electrostatic actuator for fiber-optic switching applications. It consists of two bounded silicon wafers. One input fibre with a hemispherical lens at its end and three photodetectors are fabricated on the upper wafer. A movable platform with two gratings and one mirror are fabricated on the lower wafer. When the movable platform is at a certain position, the input beam can be split into three beams by the gratings. Details of the grating switching design, theoretical analysis, fabrication and experimental results are presented in this paper.