Jürgen Daleiden

Wide continuously tunable 1.55 μm vertical air-cavity wavelength selective elements for filters and VCSELs using micromachined actuation

Tailored scaling allows the effectiveness of physical effects and mechanical stability to be enhanced. This is shown for micromachined 1.55μm vertical-resonator-based filters and VCSELs, capable of wide, continuous, and kink-free tuning by a single control parameter. Tuning is achieved by mechanically actuating one or several membranes in a vertical air-gap resonator including two highly reflective DBR mirrors. Electrostatically actuatable single-chip filters including InP/air-gap DBRs (3.5 periods) reveal a continuous tuning up to 14% of the absolute wavelength. Varying a reverse voltage (U=0 .. -3.2V) between the membranes (almost flat in the unactuated condition) a tuning range up to 142nm was obtained. Varying a reverse voltage (U=0 .. -28V) between the membranes (strained and curved in the unactuated condition) a tuning range up to 221nm was obtained. Optically pumped and continuously tunable 1.55μm VCSELs show 26nm spectral tuning range, 400μW maximum output power, and 57dBm SMSR. This two-chip VCSEL has a movable top mirror membrane, which is precisely designed to obtain a specific air-gap length and a tailored radius of curvature in order to efficiently support the fundamental optical mode of the plane-concave resonator. The curved top mirror DBR membrane consists of periodically alternating differently stressed silicon nitride and silicon dioxide multilayers. The lower InP-based part consists of the InP/GaInAsP bottom DBR and the GaInAsP active region.

142-nm electrostatically actauted tuning using surface-micromachined vertical air-cavity wavelength-selective elements for applications in 1.55μm VCSELs

Surface-micromachined 1.55μm vertical-resonator-based devices, capable of wide, continuous, monotonic and kink-free tuning are designed, technologically implemented and characterized. Tuning is achieved by mechanically actuating one or several membranes in a vertical resonator including two ultra-highly reflective DBR mirrors. The tuning is controlled by a single parameter (actuation voltage). The two different layers composing the mirrors reveal a very strong refractive index contrast. Filters including InP/air-gap DBRs (3.5 periods) using GaInAs sacrificial layers reveal a continuous tuning of >9% of the absolute wavelength. Varying a reverse voltage (U=0 .. -3.2V) between the membranes, a tuning range up to 142nm was obtained by electrostatic actuation. The correlation of the wavelength and the applied voltage is accurately reproducible without any hysteresis. Appropriate miniaturization is shown to increase the mechanical stability and the effectiveness of spectral tuning by electrostatic actuation since the relative significance of the fundamental physical forces can be varied considerably by appropriate scaling. Model calculations are performed for symmetric and asymmetric optical filter structures, varying layer thickness and compositions. Finally the filter results are used to design micromachined tunable air-gap VCSEL´s. Theoretical model calculations demonstrate very wide spectral tuning by micromachined actuation of air-gap VCSEL resonators.