Structures and methods for stress and gap mitigation in integrated optics microelectromechanical systems

Abstract

Silicon Photonics is a candidate technology for adding integrated optics functionality, either passive or active optical waveguides) to integrated circuits by leveraging the economies of scale of the CMOS microelectronics industry and using materials for the waveguide core such as silicon nitride (SiN) and silicon oxynitride (SiON) for example. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) provide for movable platforms relative to the substrate allowing additional functionality to be added to a silicon circuit but also Silicon Photonics. Accordingly, by combining 'fixed' waveguides formed upon the substrate with “movable” waveguides formed upon one or more movable platforms the inventors have established a series of Integrated Optics MEMS (IO-MEMS) based on Silicon Photonics. Such IO-MEMS include optical switches, optical attenuators, optical gates, optical switch matrices, configurable wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer devices, etc. exploiting both platforms and deformable beams.