A wide bandwidth real-time MEMS optical power meter with high resolution and linearity

Abstract

This paper presents a new type of wide bandwidth real-time micromechanical optical power meter based on a micro silicon disk resonator. The resonant frequency of micromechanical resonator is ultrasensitive with its heat absorption, which is verified by both simulation and experiment, including the open-loop and closed-loop testings. The resonant frequency of both the elliptical mode and contour mode of the disk resonator will shift when lasers of 488 nm and 1550 nm with different power are irradiated. The detector shows different heat absorption efficiency depending on the wavelength of the measured optical signal. The heat absorption efficiency was tested with 488 nm and 1550 nm laser irradiation in our experiments. According to our closed-loop experiments, the resolution of our detector could reach 78 nW, and a high linearity of R2 = 0.99605 for the 488 nm target optical signal.