This abstract presents an aluminum nitride (AlN) piezoelectric actuator for tuning optical resonance modes of silicon nitride photonic resonators. The AlN actuator is fabricated on top of a thick silicon dioxide cladding that encapsulates the nitride resonator and waveguide. The PORT is defined by undercutting the cladding layer with a lateral silicon etch. It tunes the optical wavelength by 20pm on applying 60 V to the top electrode with a 0.5nA current draw. The thick oxide cladding preserves the resonator's loaded quality factor Q optical of 64,000 across the entire tuning range. The first bending mode is at 1.1MHz enabling a tuning speed of <1 {\mu}s.
@article{arxiv.1903.08479,
title = {PORT: A piezoelectric optical resonance tuner},
author = {Bin Dong and Hao Tian and Michael Zervas and Tobias J. Kippenberg and Sunil A. Bhave},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.08479},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2018 IEEE Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)