Electrostatic micro torsion mirrors for an optical switch matrix

Abstract

We have developed a new type of compact optical switch using silicon micromachining technique. Torsion mirrors (300 /spl mu/m/spl times/600 /spl mu/m) supported by thin polysilicon beams (16 /spl mu/m wide, 320 /spl mu/m long, and 0.4 /spl mu/m thick) are arranged in a 2/spl times/2 matrix (total size 3 mm/spl times/5 mm, t 0.3 mm). The mirrors are independently attracted by electrostatic force of applied bias voltage to redirect the incident light in a free space. Using collimated beam fibers for optical coupling, we obtained small insertion loss (/spl les/-7.66 dB), considering the length of a light path (/spl ges/10 mm), a large switching contrast (/spl ges/60 dB), and small crosstalk (/spl les/-60 dB). The fabrication yield was higher than 80% thanks to the newly developed releasing technique that used a silicon oxide diaphragm as an etch-stop layer and as a mechanical support in the process. Holding voltage (/spl les/50 V) was lower than the voltage to attract the mirror (100/spl sim/150 V) because of the hysteresis of angle-voltage characteristic of electrostatic operation.