Design and fabrication of a novel micromechanical variable optical attenuator

Abstract

A novel micromechanical variable optical attenuator (VOA) for single mode fibers based on MEMS is presented in this paper. The fabrication of the micromechanical VOA combines the processes of wafer bonding and deep reactive ion etch (RIE) that presents a simply procedure of MEMS manufacturing. The VOA consists of a slope anchor and a beam with a shutter, in which the beam is laterally driven by electrostatic actuator. It is important to design and optimize the slope anchor to produce large shutter displacement with low driving voltage. In this design, the shutteri»s displacement and beam diffraction is computed to estimate the device performance as applied voltage changed. We conclude that, based on the status of current fabrication technologies, the proposed design is feasible to be implemented and shows a good candidate for the power management in complex WDM networks.