%0 Journal Article
%T Vacuum-sealed silicon photonic MEMS tunable ring resonator with an independent control over coupling and phase
%V 31
%N 4
%P 6540
%W https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/301541
%U https://opg.optica.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-31-4-6540
%X Ring resonators are a vital element for filters, optical delay lines, or sensors in silicon photonics. However, reconfigurable ring resonators with low-power consumption are not available in foundries today. We demonstrate an add-drop ring resonator with the independent tuning of round-trip phase and coupling using low-power microelectromechanical (MEMS) actuation. At a wavelength of 1540 nm and for a maximum voltage of 40 V, the phase shifters provide a resonance wavelength tuning of 0.15 nm, while the tunable couplers can tune the optical resonance extinction ratio at the through port from 0 to 30 dB. The optical resonance displays a passive quality factor of 29 000, which can be increased to almost 50 000 with actuation. The MEMS rings are individually vacuum-sealed on wafer scale, enabling reliable and long-term protection from the environment. We cycled the mechanical actuators for more than 4 × 10
              9
              cycles at 100 kHz, and did not observe degradation in their response curves. On mechanical resonance, we demonstrate a modulation increase of up to 15 dB, with a voltage bias of 4 V and a peak drive amplitude as low as 20 mV.
%G en
%J Optics Express
%A Edinger, Pierre
%A Jo, Gaehun
%A Van Nguyen, Chris Phong
%A Takabayashi, Alain Yuji
%A Errando-Herranz, Carlos
%A Antony, Cleitus
%A Talli, Giuseppe
%A Verheyen, Peter
%A Khan, Umar
%A Bleiker, Simon J.
%A Bogaerts, Wim
%A Quack, Niels
%A Niklaus, Frank
%A Gylfason, Kristinn B.
%D 2023-02-13