Errando-Herranz Carlos, Le Thomas Nicolas, Gylfason Kristinn B
Opt Lett. 2019 Feb 15;44(4):855-858. doi: 10.1364/OL.44.000855.
Optical beam steering is key for optical communications, laser mapping (lidar), and medical imaging. For these applications, integrated photonics is an enabling technology that can provide miniaturized, lighter, lower-cost, and more power-efficient systems. However, common integrated photonic devices are too power demanding. Here, we experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, beam steering by microelectromechanical (MEMS) actuation of a suspended silicon photonic waveguide grating. Our device shows up to 5.6° beam steering with 20 V actuation and power consumption below the μW level, i.e., more than five orders of magnitude lower power consumption than previous thermo-optic tuning methods. The novel combination of MEMS with integrated photonics presented in this work lays ground for the next generation of power-efficient optical beam steering systems.
光束转向对于光通信、激光测绘（激光雷达）和医学成像至关重要。对于这些应用，集成光子学是一项使能技术，能够提供小型化、更轻、成本更低且更节能的系统。然而，常见的集成光子器件功耗过大。在此，据我们所知，我们首次通过微机电（MEMS）驱动悬浮硅光子波导光栅进行光束转向的实验演示。我们的器件在20伏驱动下实现了高达5.6°的光束转向，功耗低于微瓦级别，即比之前的热光调谐方法功耗低五个数量级以上。这项工作中展示的MEMS与集成光子学的新颖结合为下一代节能光束转向系统奠定了基础。
