Elastomer based electrically tunable, optical microcavities

Abstract

Tunable optical elements are mostly realized by microelectromechanical systems, which require expensive and complex lithography during processing. We demonstrate an alternative device based on an electrically tunable microcavity employing a dielectric soft elastomer actuator. The cavity resonance is varied by changing the physical cavity thickness due to electrostriction of the soft elastomer. We realize a tunable metal-elastomer-distributed Bragg reflector multi-half wavelength microcavity with a cavity layer thickness around 12 μm and quality factors up to 700. Applying a voltage up to 60 V between bottom ITO and top metal electrode tunes the wavelength of the cavity modes up to Δλ=14 nm, which relates to a cavity thickness change of about 200 nm. This concept allows the implementation of tunable optical elements like tunable filters or resonators with low cost and simple processing.