Integrated add/drop multiplexer (ADM) using micromachined mirror

High speed, low insertion loss optical add/drop multiplexer (ADM) is designed and fabricated. The optical vertical micromirror is fabricated by deep dry etching, the aspect ratio reaches as high as 20. A thin aluminum film is deposited on the sidewall of the micromirror to increase the reflectivity. The anchors and pads are fabricated firstly, followed by the comb drive, micromirror and fiber grooves. Refilling technique is introduced to electrically insulate the anchors and pads from the substrate while still maintaining the mechanical support. The anchors and pads are strong enough to sustain the floating structures (micromirror and moving comb) and also assure good electrical connection to the electrostatic comb drive so that the external voltage can be applied. By improving dry etching, the finger width is only 2μm and the gap is only 2.5 μm. A typical electrostatic comb drive is fabricated by the deep reactive ion etching (RIE) and underneath releasing. Folded suspension beams of 800μm long, 2.0μm wide and 35μm deep are employed to support the movable micromirror. The stiffness along the desired lateral direction is 0.21N/m. Comb drive using three electrodes is employed. Its applied voltage is decreased by a ratio of 0.707 compared with that of the two electrodes system, and the switching speed is also increased. To simply the optical fiber assembly, fiber grooves are fabricated along with the other structures. This device has a typical of optical ADM that can be widely used in all optical networks. All of the processes are compatible with IC technology and can be integrated with control circuits in a single chip.